Top 100 Excel Formulas to Make You a Master: Complete Guide for Data Analysis, Reporting, and Automation

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by

Himanshu
in ,

Microsoft Excel is one of the most powerful tools used worldwide for data analysis, reporting, MIS, finance, auditing, project management, HR analytics, and automation. Whether you are a student, accountant, data analyst, or business professional, mastering Excel formulas is essential to boost productivity, accuracy, and speed. There are more than 500+ functions in Excel, but learning the most important 100 formulas can make you highly skilled and job-ready.

This article covers the top 100 Excel formulas, grouped by category, explained in a clean and organized way. Each category includes important formulas, usage style, and practical examples. This is a complete reference guide you can use in your daily work.

Why Learn Excel Formulas?

  • Helps automate repetitive tasks
  • Improves accuracy in calculations
  • Saves hours of manual work
  • Essential for MIS, accounting, finance, operations
  • Required skill in 90% of office jobs
  • Helps in data analysis and dashboard creation

Top 100 Excel Formulas (Categorized)

Below is a table representing the major categories of Excel formulas used by professionals.

CategoryExample Formulas Included
Basic MathSUM, AVERAGE, COUNT
LogicalIF, AND, OR, NOT
LookupVLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH
Text FunctionsLEFT, RIGHT, MID, LEN
Date & TimeTODAY, NETWORKDAYS
FinancialPMT, FV, NPV, IRR
StatisticalMIN, MAX, QUARTILE
Data CleaningTRIM, CLEAN, SUBSTITUTE
Error HandlingIFERROR, ISERROR
Array FunctionsSUMPRODUCT, UNIQUE, FILTER

CATEGORY 1: BASIC & MATH FORMULAS

These are the foundation of Excel. Every user must know them.

  1. SUM – Adds values
  2. SUMIF – Conditional sum
  3. SUMIFS – Multi-condition sum
  4. AVERAGE – Average of values
  5. AVERAGEIF – Conditional average
  6. AVERAGEIFS – Multi-condition average
  7. COUNT – Count numbers
  8. COUNTA – Count non-empty cells
  9. COUNTIF – Conditional count
  10. COUNTIFS – Multi-condition count
  11. ROUND – Round numbers
  12. ROUNDUP – Round upward
  13. ROUNDDOWN – Round downward
  14. PRODUCT – Multiply values
  15. SUBTOTAL – Apply function on filtered data

CATEGORY 2: LOGICAL FUNCTIONS

Logical formulas help perform decision-making operations.

  1. IF – Basic conditional formula
  2. IFERROR – Replace errors with a custom value
  3. ISERROR – Checks if value is error
  4. ISNUMBER – Checks if value is numeric
  5. AND – Both conditions must be true
  6. OR – At least one condition is true
  7. NOT – Reverses logical output
  8. XOR – Exactly one condition is true

CATEGORY 3: ADVANCED LOOKUP & REFERENCE FUNCTIONS

These help extract data from large tables.

  1. VLOOKUP – Vertical lookup
  2. HLOOKUP – Horizontal lookup
  3. XLOOKUP – Latest and most powerful lookup
  4. MATCH – Returns position in a range
  5. INDEX – Returns value using row-column reference
  6. INDEX + MATCH – Most accurate lookup combination
  7. OFFSET – Dynamic range creation
  8. CHOOSE – Select values by index number
  9. INDIRECT – Convert text to cell reference
  10. ROW – Returns row number
  11. COLUMN – Returns column number
  12. ADDRESS – Returns cell address

CATEGORY 4: TEXT FUNCTIONS

Useful for cleaning, splitting, and formatting text data.

  1. LEFT – Extract left characters
  2. RIGHT – Extract right characters
  3. MID – Extract characters from middle
  4. LEN – Count characters
  5. TRIM – Remove extra spaces
  6. CLEAN – Remove non-printable characters
  7. UPPER – Change to uppercase
  8. LOWER – Change to lowercase
  9. PROPER – Capitalize first letter
  10. TEXT – Format numbers
  11. SUBSTITUTE – Replace text
  12. REPLACE – Replace characters by position
  13. FIND – Find text position
  14. SEARCH – Case-insensitive search
  15. CONCAT – Combine text
  16. TEXTJOIN – Join multiple text values
  17. VALUE – Convert text to number

CATEGORY 5: DATE & TIME FUNCTIONS

Essential for working with schedules, payroll, HR, attendance, and reports.

  1. TODAY – Current date
  2. NOW – Current date and time
  3. DATE – Create a date
  4. EDATE – Add months
  5. EOMONTH – End of month
  6. DAY – Extract day
  7. MONTH – Extract month
  8. YEAR – Extract year
  9. NETWORKDAYS – Working days between dates
  10. NETWORKDAYS.INTL – Custom working days
  11. DATEDIF – Difference in years, months, days
  12. WEEKDAY – Returns day number
  13. HOUR – Extract hour
  14. MINUTE – Extract minute
  15. SECOND – Extract second

CATEGORY 6: FINANCIAL FUNCTIONS

Useful for loan calculations, investment planning, banking analysis.

  1. PMT – Loan EMI
  2. IPMT – Interest portion
  3. PPMT – Principal portion
  4. FV – Future value of investment
  5. PV – Present value
  6. NPV – Net present value
  7. IRR – Internal rate of return
  8. RATE – Return rate
  9. DDB – Depreciation calculation
  10. SLN – Straight-line depreciation

CATEGORY 7: STATISTICAL FUNCTIONS

Useful for data analytics, forecasting, and MIS.

  1. MIN – Minimum value
  2. MAX – Maximum value
  3. LARGE – nth largest value
  4. SMALL – nth smallest value
  5. PERCENTILE – Percentile calculation
  6. QUARTILE – Quartile values
  7. VAR – Variance
  8. STDEV – Standard deviation
  9. MODE – Most frequent value
  10. MEDIAN – Middle value

CATEGORY 8: DATA CLEANING & DATA ANALYSIS FUNCTIONS

  1. UNIQUE – Remove duplicates
  2. FILTER – Filter data dynamically
  3. SORT – Sort data
  4. SORTBY – Sort by another column
  5. SEQUENCE – Generate number series
  6. TRANSPOSE – Convert rows to columns
  7. TEXTSPLIT – Split text into columns
  8. XMATCH – Advanced lookup
  9. LET – Store variable inside formula
  10. LAMBDA – Custom reusable function
  11. SUMPRODUCT – Multi-condition calculation
  12. AGGREGATE – Versatile summary function
  13. FORECAST.LINEAR – Predict future values

Sample Table: Top 10 Most Used Excel Formulas

FormulaPurpose
VLOOKUPLookup value from a table
IFConditional calculation
SUMIFCondition-based sum
COUNTIFCount based on condition
INDEX MATCHMost accurate lookup
CONCATJoin text values
TEXTFormat dates and numbers
NETWORKDAYSCount working days
IFERRORRemove errors
SUMPRODUCTAdvanced calculations

Practical Example of Using Multiple Formulas

Imagine you need to calculate project working days, cost, and map employee names.

  • Use VLOOKUP to fetch employee name
  • Use NETWORKDAYS to calculate working days
  • Use SUMPRODUCT to calculate total project cost
  • Use CONCAT to join names and project IDs

These combined formulas save hours of manual work.

Final Thoughts

Mastering Excel formulas is the fastest way to become efficient and accurate in your daily work. With these top 100 Excel formulas, you can perform complex calculations, automate workflows, clean data, analyze large datasets, create dashboards, and produce professional reports. Whether you are preparing for an MIS job, data analysis career, accounting role, or office work, these formulas will make you a true Excel master.

Practice each formula with real datasets, combine them to solve complex problems, and use them in your day-to-day reporting to become exceptionally skilled.

Disclaimer

All formulas and examples provided are for educational and training purposes. Actual functionality may vary depending on Excel version. Users should practice these formulas on sample data before using them in live or official reports. Always verify results for accuracy.