Which data entry tools and features (for example: Excel functions, data validation, macros, database import tools) have you used regularly? Give a specific example of a task you automated or simplified and the tools or formulas you used.

I use Excel daily (XLOOKUP/INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, IFERROR, TRIM/CLEAN), Data Validation lists, Conditional Formatting, Power Query, and VBA macros. For example, I automated a monthly vendor reconciliation that was 6 hours of manual matching across six CSVs. I used Power Query to import and normalize all files, XLOOKUP to map vendor IDs, SUMIFS for aggregated totals, and a short VBA macro to generate the final report and export PDFs. The end-to-end process dropped from ~6 hours to about 40 minutes (≈89% time savings), processed ~50,000 rows, and reduced reconciliation errors from 2.5% to 0.2%.