Dana Miranda is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance, creator of the Healthy Rich newsletter and author of You Don't Need a Budget: Stop Worrying about Debt, Spend without Shame, and Manage Money ...

Excel used to be the poor schmuck’s database, with spreadsheets that just sort of sat there. You could create something more sophisticated with LOOKUP functions, but they were a huge hassle to set up.

Excel created pivot tables to improve upon its convoluted, weak reporting features (which are still available). The pivot table is actually a collection of tools that Excel uses to help you create ...

Editorial Note: Forbes Advisor may earn a commission on sales made from partner links on this page, but that doesn't affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is one ...