Microsoft expands Copilot finance skills: what is available now
Microsoft announced more than 25 new finance skills and partner-built plugins for Copilot on October 29. Availability varies: some features are generally available, accounting is in Frontier, and connecting services are beginning rollout. Microsoft announcement
What can you use now?
Check availability before planning a workflow.
| Capability | Announced status | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting in Excel and Cowork | Frontier | Early-access availability |
| Finance skills in Excel | Generally available | Skills in your Excel experience |
| Capital Markets and Finance plugins in Cowork | Generally available | Plugin availability in your organization |
| Fabric IQ in Cowork | Generally available | Your governed data access |
| Dynamics 365 ERP apps plugin | Beginning rollout | Availability in the plugin registry |
| Partner plugins | Beginning rollout | Provider access and any separate subscription |
A finance skill is not a data connection
Microsoft’s plugin documentation makes an important distinction: Finance and Capital Markets provide role-specific skills. Adding them does not, by itself, connect Cowork to an ERP system or market-data service.
The Finance plugin covers work such as budget consolidation, forecast-review preparation and variance commentary. Capital Markets covers sourced company profiles, comparisons, diligence and investment-committee materials. These are different work packages, not interchangeable names for the same connector.
To find them, open Cowork’s Customize page, browse Roles & Industry or search the name, review its skills and select Add. Administrators control which plugins are available. After installation, Cowork can select skills from the request, or the user can choose one through the slash command or plus menu. Microsoft plugin documentation
What an Excel workflow actually involves
Excel’s skills catalog provides a more concrete starting point than a general request to analyze everything. The reconciliation skill compares records and prepares discrepancies for review. Close-management organizes owners, deadlines and blocked activities. Variance-analysis examines changes against a budget, forecast or earlier period.
Microsoft documents an at-sign followed by a skill name as the way to invoke a particular Excel skill. Its support page also warns that generated material can be wrong or incomplete. Calculations, account mappings and proposed treatments must be checked against source records before posting or sharing. The tools do not replace professional judgment or internal approvals. Excel skills guide
Watch the vendor’s workflow demonstration
If the player does not load, watch Microsoft’s finance demonstration on YouTube.
The useful distinction
For a team evaluating this release, the first question is not how many skills exist. It is whether the required skill, underlying records and approval process are all available together. A polished output is still a draft until the people responsible for the numbers have checked it.
