Vesence in Excel helps you check, format, and understand spreadsheets.
Use it for workbooks, tables, formulas, assumptions, cap tables, schedules, and spreadsheet-to-document checks.
Common use cases
Use Vesence in Excel when you want to:
- Check a workbook for inconsistent totals, formulas, dates, labels, or assumptions
- Understand how a formula, table, or output works
- Improve sheet formatting and readability
- Compare figures in a workbook against a contract, term sheet, PDF, email, or another spreadsheet
- Produce an issue list with cell references for follow-up review
What Vesence can use in Excel
In Excel, Vesence works with the workbook you have open.
It can use sheet names, selected cells, ranges, tables, visible text, formulas, and related source material you provide, such as contracts, term sheets, PDFs, emails, or other spreadsheets.
You can ask Vesence to work on a whole workbook, a sheet, a selected range, a formula, or a specific issue such as data consistency or number formatting.
Workspace in Excel
The Excel add-in includes a workspace where you can add documents and other materials as context for Vesence.
Use the workspace when Vesence should consider another document, such as a term sheet, precedent, prior version, template, styleguide, or supporting material.
See: Vesence Workspace for more information.
Edit mode
Edit mode controls how Vesence applies suggested changes to a workbook.
Choose whether Vesence asks before each edit or applies all edits automatically.
- Use ask-before-each-edit when the workbook is sensitive, close to final, or you want to review each change before it is inserted. This mode is useful for legal or financial spreadsheets, negotiated schedules, client-facing workbooks, formulas, assumptions, or any edit where a small change could affect meaning or outputs.
- Use automatic editing when the task is low-risk, repetitive, or mainly mechanical, such as fixing formatting, removing placeholders, applying simple label improvements, adjusting column widths, or making consistent changes across a sheet.
Automatic editing can be faster, but you should still review the result before sending, signing, relying on, or finalizing the workbook.
To review changes before they apply
Show stepsHide steps
When Vesence asks before each edit, it opens the Review changes tool — each proposed change is shown as a tracked change so you can preview exactly which cells and formulas will change before anything is written to the workbook.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Region | Revenue | Costs | Margin | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
| 2 | EMEA | 1.2M1.5M | 1.0M | 63% | 210 | 261 | 312 | 363 |
| 3 | APAC | 0.8M0.9M | 1.3M | 54% | 303 | 354 | 405 | 156 |
| 4 | Americas | 2.1M | 1.4M | 85% | 396 | 147 | 198 | 249 |
| 5 | Nordics | 2.0M | 1.5M | 56% | 189 | 240 | 291 | 342 |
| 6 | DACH | 2.3M | 1.2M | 87% | 282 | 333 | 384 | 135 |
| 7 | UK & I | 2.2M | 1.3M | 78% | 375 | 126 | 177 | 228 |
| 8 | France | 2.1M | 1.4M | 69% | 168 | 219 | 270 | 321 |
| 9 | Benelux | 2.0M | 1.1M | 80% | 261 | 312 | 363 | 414 |
| 10 | Iberia | 2.3M | 1.2M | 71% | 354 | 405 | 156 | 207 |
| 11 | Italy | 2.2M | 1.3M | 62% | 147 | 198 | 249 | 300 |
| 12 | MEA | 2.1M | 1.0M | 73% | 240 | 291 | 342 | 393 |
| 13 | LATAM | 2.4M | 1.1M | 64% | 333 | 384 | 135 | 186 |
| 14 | Canada | 2.3M | 1.2M | 55% | 126 | 177 | 228 | 279 |
| 15 | Japan | 2.2M | 1.3M | 66% | 219 | 270 | 321 | 372 |
| 16 | India | 2.5M | 1.0M | 57% | 312 | 363 | 414 | 165 |
- Ask Vesence to make a change with Edit mode set to ask before each edit.
- Vesence opens the Review changes tool, showing each proposed cell or formula change.
- Switch between Preview, Before, and After at the top to compare the change against the original values.
- Press Approve (labelled with the number of changed cells) to write the changes to the workbook, or Deny to discard them.
Tracked changes in Excel
Vesence can make tracked changes in Excel. These changes are only visible to people using Vesence, and only in Vesence on the web.
See: Vesence on the web for more information.
Actions in Excel
Excel includes three prebuilt prompt buttons: Check, Format Sheet, and Explain. You can press one of these buttons to start quickly, or type an example prompt when you want to be more specific.
Check
Check reviews the workbook or selected sheet for spreadsheet quality, consistency, and presentation issues.
Press the Check button when you want Vesence to find possible spreadsheet problems before you rely on the workbook or share it.
Check can cover:
- Data Consistency — mismatched totals, inconsistent dates, conflicting names, different values for the same item, or inconsistent assumptions
- Formula Errors — broken references, suspicious formulas, hardcoded values, calculation errors, or formulas that differ from surrounding cells
- Number Formatting — inconsistent currency, percentages, decimals, dates, negative numbers, or units
- Spelling & Typos — spelling mistakes and typographical errors in labels, headers, notes, assumptions, and descriptions
Example outputs include an issue list with sheet names and cell references, a summary of formula risks, or a list of formatting inconsistencies.
You can also type prompts such as:
- "Check this workbook for inconsistent totals."
- "Check this range for formula errors."
- "Check whether the number formatting is consistent."
- "Check the labels and assumptions for typos."
To run a Check
Show stepsHide steps
- Open the workbook you want to review and open the Vesence pane.
- Press Check to start a review.
- Vesence reviews the workbook and lists the issues it finds, grouped by category — Spelling & Typos, Number Formatting, Formula Errors, and Data Consistency.
- Work through each issue — each with its sheet name and cell reference — and apply the fixes you agree with.
Each issue is labelled by how much it matters, so you can deal with the important ones first:
Format Sheet
Format Sheet improves the visual structure and readability of a spreadsheet.
Press the Format Sheet button when the sheet is hard to read, inconsistently formatted, or needs a more professional presentation.
It can help with clearer headers, readable spacing, better number formats, appropriate column widths, cleaner table presentation, and more consistent visual structure.
Example outputs include cleaner headers, more consistent number formats, adjusted column widths, and a sheet that is easier to review or share.
You can also type prompts such as:
- "Format this sheet so it is easier to review."
- "Clean up the headers and spacing."
- "Apply consistent number formats to this table."
- "Make this schedule presentation-ready."
Explain
Explain helps you understand spreadsheet content.
Press the Explain button when you want Vesence to describe what selected cells, formulas, tables, or workbook logic mean.
It can help you understand how a formula works, what a table shows, how assumptions connect to outputs, why a value appears, and which cells drive a result.
Example outputs include a plain-English formula explanation, a dependency summary, or an explanation of how assumptions drive a result.
You can also type prompts such as:
- "Explain this formula in plain English."
- "What does this table show?"
- "How is this ownership percentage calculated?"
- "Which assumptions drive this output?"
