Excel Tips is a podcast for accounting, business and finance professionals who are looking to sharpen their spreadsheet skills and learn new hacks and tricks from Neale Blackwood FCPA, a Microsoft Excel expert. Excel Tips helps spreadsheet users discover Excel's hidden features and shortcuts and understand how best to apply the newest features and functionality.
The podcast is a companion to regular articles in INTHEBLACK, CPA Australia's award-winning business magazine. Every podcast episode includes links to the accompanying Excel Tips digital magazine article. Neale Blackwood FCPA has more than 25 years of experience as a Microsoft Excel educator. He is the author of more than 250 INTHEBLACK articles as well as a book, Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants. Subscribe today to stay up-to-date with the latest episodes. Excel Tips is presented by CPA Australia, one of the world's largest accounting bodies, with core services that include education, training, technical support and advocacy.
CPA Australia publishes four podcasts: With Interest, INTHEBLACK, INTHEBLACK Out Loud and Excel Tips. To find out more about our podcasts, visit https://www.cpaaustralia.com.au/tools-and-resources/podcasts - or search for the shows in your podcast service. To contact the podcast team email us at podcasts@cpaaustralia.com.au.
Excel's core strength is working with numbers. And we love how it makes our data work more efficiently.
However, what happens when the data is words?
Python in Excel closes that gap, allowing you to analyse short-form feedback such as customer surveys, employee comments, training feedback and help desk responses.
This episode explains how sentiment analysis works and how to combine Python with Excel formulas to create a practical feedback analysis workflow.
You will learn:
How sentiment analysis can help analyse large volumes of written feedback
How Python in Excel gives Excel capabilities it does not have natively
How VADER scores negative, neutral, positive and overall sentiment
How to turn raw sentiment scores into useful descriptions with XLOOKUP
How spill ranges, LET, DROP, HSTACK and VSTACK extend the analysis
Where sentiment analysis can struggle, including sarcasm, irony and jargon
Why human judgement is still needed to interpret and act on feedback
Tune in now.
Host: Neale Blackwood CPA. He has more than 20 years of experience as a Microsoft Excel educator and is the author of more than 200 INTHEBLACK articles as well as a book, Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants.
There is a useful companion video to go with this episode of Excel Tips.
And you can read more of Neale's Excel articles on INTHEBLACK.
You can find a CPA at our custom portal on the CPA Australia website.
Loving this content?
Would you like to listen to more Excel Tips and other CPA Australia podcasts like INTHEBLACK and With Interest? Head to CPA Australia's YouTube channel.
CPA Australia publishes four podcasts, providing commentary and thought leadership across business, finance, and accounting:
With Interest
INTHEBLACK
Excel Tips
INTHEBLACK Out Loud
Search for them in your podcast platform.
You can email the podcast team at podcasts@cpaaustralia.com.au
1 Sept 2026
Create interactive Excel charts (part 2)
Can you make Excel reporting more interactive? Yes, you can.
And it's all to do with dynamic arrays.
In the second of this two-part series, discover how to create dynamic Excel charts this time using financial year calculations and checkboxes.
This is useful for finance pros because the techniques allow users more control.
You will learn:
How to convert calendar year calculations into financial years
How to use checkboxes to control ascending or descending chart order
How checkboxes can figure out which metrics appear on a chart
How PIVOTBY creates two-dimensional reports for chart data
How FILTER, HSTACK and VSTACK can combine chart components
How formatted tables allow charts to update when new monthly data is added
How to build safeguards for accidentally deleted checkboxes
Tune in now.
Host: Neale Blackwood CPA. He has more than 20 years of experience as a Microsoft Excel educator and is the author of more than 200 INTHEBLACK articles as well as a book, Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants.
There is a useful companion video to go with this episode of Excel Tips. (https://youtu.be/rZqSptKX4T4)
And you can read more of Neale's Excel articles on INTHEBLACK.
You can find a CPA at our custom portal on the CPA Australia website.
Loving this content?
Would you like to listen to more Excel Tips and other CPA Australia podcasts like INTHEBLACK and With Interest? Head to CPA Australia's YouTube channel.
CPA Australia publishes four podcasts, providing commentary and thought leadership across business, finance and accounting:
With Interest
INTHEBLACK
Excel Tips
INTHEBLACK Out Loud
Search for them in your podcast platform.
You can email the podcast team at podcasts@cpaaustralia.com.au
3 Aug 2026
Create interactive Excel charts
Wouldn't it be useful to learn how to build interactive Excel charts that respond automatically to user input using dynamic arrays?
This expert-led episode introduces the core techniques behind flexible charting in Excel, with practical examples.
Key takeaways:
Create charts that automatically adjust the number of months displayed
Use SEQUENCE to build flexible dynamic array calculations
Combine data for charts with the HSTACK function
Find the latest reporting period using MAX and EOMONTH
Extract and summarise data with INDEX, MATCH and GROUPBY
Fix a common dynamic array date bug using a simple formula adjustment
Learn why helper cells make complex formulas easier to understand
This is the first episode in a two-part series on interactive Excel charts, with the next instalment in September covering more advanced reporting techniques, including financial year reporting.
Tune in now.
Host: Neale Blackwood CPA. He has more than 20 years of experience as a Microsoft Excel educator and is the author of more than 200 INTHEBLACK articles as well as a book, Advanced Excel Reporting for Management Accountants.
There is a useful companion video (https://youtu.be/5Yf9aO0_EDo) to go with this episode of Excel Tips.
And you can read more of Neale's Excel articles on INTHEBLACK.
You can find a CPA at our custom portal on the CPA Australia website.
Loving this content?
Would you like to listen to more Excel Tips and other CPA Australia podcasts like INTHEBLACK and With Interest? Head to CPA Australia's YouTube channel.
CPA Australia publishes four podcasts, providing commentary and thought leadership across business, finance, and accounting:
With Interest
INTHEBLACK
Excel Tips
INTHEBLACK Out Loud
Search for them in your podcast platform.
You can email the podcast team at podcasts@cpaaustralia.com.au
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
4,800,844
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Spotify
4.4 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
27
Social presence
0
YouTube
93
Engagement
77
Contact Excel Tips
Guest appearances
Does not typically book guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
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