Excel like a finance pro.
Teach Excel your own fill sequence
AltF, T, AEntry & fillAnd then sort by it — P&L order rather than alphabetical.
Difficulty
1What it does
Excel already knows Jan, Feb, Mar. A custom list teaches it yours: your departments, your entity codes, your P&L line order. Filling from one cell then produces the whole sequence. The bigger win is sorting: the Sort dialog's Order dropdown has a **Custom List** option, which is the only sane way to get a P&L into Revenue, COGS, Gross profit, Opex order instead of alphabetical. Lists live in the Excel installation rather than the file, so they follow you between workbooks and don't travel to a colleague.
2The shortcut
- 1Type the list in a column, in the order you want it, then select it.
- 2
Alt + F,T,A→ Advanced → **Edit Custom Lists** → **Import**. - 3To sort by it: in the Sort dialog set **Order** to
Custom Listand pick yours.
3Before → after
Press the shortcut to play it on a sample sheet.
One cell typed
| A — Your order | B — What A→Z would give you | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Revenue | |
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 |
Import the list once from a column, then fill and sort by it forever.
4When you use it
- Fill your department list from one cell.
- Sort a P&L into statement order rather than A to Z.
- Keep entity or region columns in the order the business thinks in.
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