Microsoft adds accounting skills and Xero and QuickBooks plugins to Copilot.
October month-end at a landscaping business with crews in Perth and Bristol
A fictional business, our drawing of what Microsoft announced. It is not Copilot’s interface.
Copilot in ExcelAccounting skillsFrontier
Reconcile the operating account
Bank lineAgainst the ledgerCard payment, irrigation suppliesMatchedTransfer from the Bristol accountMatchedClient deposit, Cottesloe gardenMissing from the ledgerFuel card, OctoberAmount differs
Reconciling items prepared for review
Audit trail on: what Copilot changed and why
Copilot CoworkFinance pluginGenerally available
Prepare the close review package
Close updates gathered from the team
Blockers and risks listed
Variances that need an explanation, investigated
Commentary and follow-ups drafted for review
Partner pluginsYour accounting systemRolling out
XeroIntuit QuickBooksZZoho Books
And the Dynamics 365 ERP apps plugin, for businesses on Microsoft’s own ERP. All beginning to roll out through the Microsoft plugin registry.
Your bookkeeper reviews the reconciling items before any entry is posted.
Our drawing, with a fictional business, of what Microsoft announced on 29 October 2026. It is not the interface of Excel or Copilot.
On 29 October 2026, Microsoft added more than 25 finance skills and partner plugins to Copilot. For a business that keeps its books in Excel, Xero or QuickBooks, three parts matter: accounting skills in Copilot in Excel and Cowork that reconcile accounts, draft journal entries and explain results against plan, available in Frontier; a Finance plugin in Cowork that prepares a close review package, generally available; and plugins for Intuit QuickBooks, Xero and Zoho Books, which are beginning to roll out. Each part depends on a different licence or administrator setting, and that is what decides when your team sees it.
By The AI Adoption · Published on 4 November 2026 · Sources: Microsoft’s announcement, its June posts on Copilot in Excel and Cowork, and its Microsoft Learn pages
What Microsoft announced
Microsoft published the announcement on its Copilot blog on 29 October 2026, under the title “Microsoft Copilot for finance”. It adds more than 25 finance skills and partner-built plugins across Copilot, for accounting, capital markets and broader finance work, and it builds on the finance skills Microsoft introduced in Copilot in Excel in June 2026.
Two changes sit around those skills. With Office in Copilot, Excel is embedded in the Copilot app, so a workbook can be analysed, edited and co-authored from Copilot Chat or Cowork without opening Excel. And Work IQ, which Microsoft describes as grounding Copilot in the organisation’s own knowledge, lets it work from material such as the close calendar rather than only from the file in front of it.
The capital markets part, a plugin for investment cases, trading comparables and buyout models, is aimed at banking, research, private equity and wealth management. This page keeps to what a business that runs its own books will use: the accounting skills, the Finance plugin and the connections to its accounting system.
The accounting skills in Excel and Cowork
Microsoft lists three accounting capabilities, available in Frontier for Copilot in Excel and Cowork. Reconciling accounts: Copilot compares balances and transactions, identifies discrepancies and prepares reconciling items for review. Preparing journal entries: it drafts accruals, reclassifications, allocations, reversals and recurring entries, and checks that the required inputs are there and that each entry balances. Reporting on results: it analyses performance against plan, identifies the main drivers and prepares reporting that explains what changed and why.
In Excel, the person who invokes one of these capabilities can choose to start an audit trail, which records in their chat history what Copilot changed and why. Microsoft adds that further capabilities cover audit, tax, financial planning and analysis, compliance and training, without describing them in the post.
These skills follow the ones Microsoft released in June, which let a team define how Copilot completes a recurring process, such as closing the books or preparing a variance analysis. A custom skill is a markdown file saved in OneDrive, which Copilot picks up and follows, so the way your business closes a month can be written down once rather than explained again in every conversation.
The close review in Cowork
Cowork is the part of Copilot that carries out long, multistep tasks across files and tools and returns a finished result. The Finance plugin for Cowork, generally available, works across files and conversations rather than in a single workbook. Microsoft’s first example is a close review package: Cowork brings together the close updates, identifies blockers and risks, investigates the variances that need an explanation and drafts the commentary and follow-ups for the team to review. Its second example carries a forecast review through to leadership, with the supporting spreadsheets, presentation and follow-up messages.
Cowork comes with its own conditions. It requires the Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and each task is billed on usage in Copilot Credits. It is off by default: an administrator decides when to turn it on and who gets access, and can set spending limits for the organisation, for groups and for individual users, with alerts when spending crosses a threshold.
Xero, QuickBooks and the system that holds your books
Most of the data behind a month-end sits in the accounting system, not in Excel. Microsoft names Intuit QuickBooks, Xero and Zoho Books among its partners for accounting, planning and financial management, alongside providers of credit, research and market data, and Mercury for spend management and business banking. For businesses on Microsoft’s own ERP, the Dynamics 365 ERP apps plugin lets accountants prepare journal entries and supporting schedules from the system of record.
The partner plugins and the Dynamics 365 plugin are beginning to roll out through the Microsoft plugin registry. Microsoft gives no date for any of them, and it notes that third-party services may require separate licensing, subscriptions, sign-in or administrator enablement from the provider. A business on Xero or QuickBooks should therefore expect two steps before the plugin reaches its team: the Microsoft administrator who allows it, and the sign-in on the accounting system’s side.
What each part needs, and who switches it on
The three parts do not reach a team in the same way. The table sets them side by side from Microsoft’s own pages, with the status each one had on 29 October 2026.
What each part needs before your team sees it
Part
Status
What it needs
Who switches it on
Accounting skills, Excel and Cowork
StatusFrontier
What it needsEnrolment in Frontier, where the default is no access, and a Copilot licence
Who switches it onAn administrator, in the Microsoft 365 admin centre
Finance skills in Excel
StatusGenerally available
What it needsMicrosoft 365 Copilot, on Excel for the web, Windows and Mac
Who switches it onAvailable to licensed users
Finance plugin in Cowork
StatusGenerally available
What it needsThe Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, with Cowork tasks billed on usage in Copilot Credits
Who switches it onAn administrator turns Cowork on, chooses who gets it and sets spending limits
Xero, QuickBooks and Zoho Books plugins
StatusRolling out
What it needsPossibly the provider’s own licence or subscription, and a sign-in
Who switches it onThe Microsoft administrator, and the provider where it requires it
In the UK and the EU, Anthropic models are off by default, and Microsoft’s June post states that Cowork runs on Anthropic models at general availability. An administrator turns them on under AI providers operating as Microsoft subprocessors.
From Microsoft’s posts of 25 June, 16 June and 29 October 2026 and its Microsoft Learn pages, read on 4 November 2026. Our table, not the admin centre.
Frontier is an opt-in programme that an administrator turns on in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, under Copilot, then Settings, then Copilot Frontier, where the default is No access and the other choices are all users or specific users and groups. To use Frontier features for Copilot, a person needs a Copilot licence. Microsoft states that Frontier features are previews that may be modified, suspended or discontinued, may not be covered by standard support or service levels, and do not comply with ISO 27001, ISO 27002 or ISO 27018, which a business that has committed to those standards with its own clients will want to know before switching them on.
A business in the United Kingdom has one more setting to check. Microsoft’s June post states that Cowork runs on Anthropic models at general availability, and its Learn page states that Anthropic models are off by default for customers in the UK and the European Union. An administrator with the AI Administrator or Global Administrator role turns them on under Copilot, then Settings, then View all, in AI providers operating as Microsoft subprocessors. For most commercial customers elsewhere, Australia and New Zealand included, they are on by default.
Reviewing what Copilot changed
Microsoft presents traceability as the condition for finance work. In Excel, Copilot can summarise recent activity in a workbook, identify when a change was made and by whom, explain how it may have affected the analysis, and reverse individual edits without disturbing the rest of the workbook. Since June, a person can also ask Copilot to plan before it acts, listing the ranges, sheets, formulas and assumptions it intends to change, and Copilot’s edits appear next to colleagues’ edits in the Show Changes pane.
In the October close workbook
“What changed in this workbook since Monday, and who changed it?”
Three changes since Monday: two by Copilot, one by your bookkeeper. The fuel card reclassification moves the variance on vehicle costs.
CopilotReclassified the fuel card line to vehicle costsReverse this edit
BookkeeperAdded the Cottesloe deposit to the ledger
CopilotDrafted an accrual for maintenance not yet invoicedReverse this edit
Our drawing, with a fictional workbook, of the review features Microsoft describes. It is not Excel’s interface.
On data, Microsoft states that Copilot processes prompts and responses within the Microsoft 365 service boundary with enterprise data protection, works only with the content each user can already access, honours existing permissions and sensitivity labels, and does not use prompts, responses or documents to train its foundation models. It adds that finance professionals keep control of the recommendations, decisions, approvals and actions that follow.
That last point is the one a business has to organise. Who reviews the reconciling items, who approves a journal entry before it is posted, and which entries Copilot may only draft are decisions the business makes task by task, as we describe in handing a repetitive task to AI with a person’s approval.
What Microsoft does not say yet
When the accounting skills leave Frontier. The post gives no date for general availability.
Which licence the finance features need. The October post names none; the Cowork licence and its usage billing come from Microsoft’s June post.
When the Xero, QuickBooks and Zoho Books plugins arrive, and in which regions. The post does not say either, nor whether these plugins only read the accounting data or can also write entries back.
What the audit, tax, planning and compliance capabilities do. They are named, not described.
How we start
We work in Claude, and when a team runs on Microsoft 365 we start from what it has: which people hold a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, whether Frontier is on and for whom, whether Cowork is switched on with a spending limit, and which steps of the month-end stay with a person. Our comparison of Microsoft Copilot and Claude for a business on Microsoft 365 sets out what each one can reach and change, and our page on the Microsoft Frontier programme explains what enrolling users changes.
Every fact on this page comes from Microsoft’s own posts and documentation, read on the day of publication. Microsoft changes these features often and details may change after publication.
The AI AdoptionFree AI pre-audit 
Copilot in ExcelAccounting skills
Xero
Intuit QuickBooks