Mint’s AI tool of the week is Skill Builder, a new Copilot feature that automates monthly Excel reports. Users teach the tool a process once, and it repeats the exact structure and formatting every month. It saves finished work as a skill, helping finance teams handle repetitive tasks with ease.
What problem does Skill Builder solve?
Every finance team has a monthly ritual. Actuals arrive, someone rebuilds the variance pack, reapplies the formatting, rewrites the commentary, and repeats it four weeks later. The logic lives in one analyst’s head, so the output shifts with whoever prepares it.
A skill is a saved set of instructions that tells Copilot how you want a task done: the layout, the formatting and the tone of the commentary. Call it by name and Copilot follows those instructions each time.
What can it do?
Teach once: Turn a process you follow into a skill without writing files
Repeat exactly: Reapply the same structure and formatting every month
Save finished work: Convert a task you just completed into a skill in one sentence
Example
An FP&A manager must send the budget versus actuals pack to the CFO by the fifth working day, and wants next month’s version to take minutes.
Do it once:Compare actuals to budget by cost centre, add variance and variance percentage columns, and explain the three largest movements.
Save it: Add Save what we just did to a new skill. Or start fresh with @skill-builder and describe the workflow.
Specify structure:A skill that formats monthly variance reports as tables, highlights negative variances, and adds a summary chart.
Refine first: Review the preview, then add Also include a prior-year comparison column before approving.
Reuse: Next month, call the skill with an @mention in the new workbook. It is stored in your OneDrive.
What makes Skill Builder special?
Learns from examples: It builds skills from completed work, not only instructions
Preview first: You refine the skill before saving, and can update it later
Open format: Skills use the standard SKILL.md format, so they stay plain, editable files
Mint's ‘AI tool of the week’ is excerpted from Leslie D'Monte's weekly TechTalk newsletter. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox.