Excel Automations to Save Hours with Microsoft Copilot & Python the easy way with David Fortin

In this episode of Future Finance, hosts Paul Barnhurst and Glenn Hopper sit down with David Fortin, CPA, YouTuber, and 2024 Microsoft MVP, to explore the real-world evolution of Excel, Microsoft Copilot, and how AI is changing the finance landscape. With his signature humor and down-to-earth style, David shares how he transitioned from SaaS finance to teaching Excel online, and why he believes learning should be both practical and fun.

David is the creator behind Piggybank Accountant, a fast-growing YouTube channel that teaches Excel and Copilot to accountants and finance professionals. Before diving into content creation full-time, David helped raise $30 million for a SaaS startup and supported its successful exit. Today, he’s known for making even the most technical topics feel approachable. Whether he’s talking about conditional formatting or Python in Excel, David’s mission is simple: help people learn skills that matter in the most engaging way possible.

In this episode, you will discover:

• What it means to be a Microsoft MVP and how it’s opened doors in David’s career.

• Why Copilot is ideal for Excel beginners and how it’s starting to serve power users too.

• How finance professionals can actually use Copilot today to save time and improve workflows.

• Where Copilot shines, where it falls short, and what to expect next.

• Why David walked away from a corporate role to pursue content full time. 

David brings fresh energy to conversations around Excel, Copilot, and how technology is changing the way finance professionals work. This episode is perfect for anyone curious about Copilot, looking to up their Excel game, or wondering how to bring creativity into finance. David proves that learning can be entertaining, and still incredibly useful.

Follow David:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-fortin-cpa-816b20b5/

Website - https://courses.davidpba.com/

Join hosts Glenn and Paul as they unravel the complexities of AI in finance:

Follow Glenn:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbhopperiii

Follow Paul:
LinkedIn -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy

Follow QFlow.AI:
Website -  https://bit.ly/4fYK9vY

Future Finance is sponsored by QFlow.ai, the strategic finance platform solving the toughest part of planning and analysis: B2B revenue. Align sales, marketing, and finance, speed up decision-making, and lock in accountability with QFlow.ai.

Stay tuned for a deeper understanding of how AI is shaping the future of finance and what it means for businesses and individuals alike.

In Today’s Episode:
[01:07] - Welcome & Introduction

[02:04] - Meet David: From CPA to Microsoft MVP

[05:00] - What the MVP Journey Has Been Like

[08:08] - Copilot in Excel: Where It Is Now

[12:33] - New Features and Real Use Cases

[17:33] - Sorting Through the AI Hype

[21:03] - Using Copilot as a Finance Pro

[25:40] - Time-Saving Examples from the Field

[29:06] - Thoughts on Prompting and Productivity

[36:06] - Excel Meets World of Warcraft

[43:12] - Leaving the 9-5 for YouTube

[49:00] - Wrap-Up & Final Thoughts


Full Show Transcript:

[00:01:07] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to the Future Finance show where we talk about.

[00:01:11] Robot: Treasury management on our

[00:01:21] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Future Financefinance is brought to you by QFlow , the strategic finance platform solving the toughest part of planning and analysis. B2B revenue aligns sales, marketing and finance seamlessly. Speed up decision making and lock in accountability with Q Flow.AI. Welcome to future finance. This week we're thrilled to be joined by David on the show. David, welcome.

[00:01:57] Guest: David Fortin: Hi. Thank you for having me. Hi, Paul. Hi, Glenn.

[00:01:59] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Hey. Good to see you again.

[00:02:00] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Hopefully, we'll get you to speak some French at some point and have a little fun, but a little bit about David. See? There you go. David is a chartered professional accountant, and we didn't hold that against him. We still brought him to the show. And a 2024 Microsoft MVP most Valuable Professional. He runs Piggybank Accountant, a YouTube channel where he shares practical insights on Excel and Microsoft Copilot. With a background in PHP and a for a SaaS startup, David was instrumental in raising $30 million in VC funding. He was able to play a key role in the company's successful exit, valued at hundreds of millions. Known for his dynamic and energetic personality, David is all about helping people, which he does through his online courses on Excel and https://courses.davidpba.com/. What sets David apart is his ability to make learning fun and engaging, bringing a unique energy to his videos that resonates with his audience. Did I capture it, David?

[00:03:19] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah, I think you got this right. Thank you so much. That's such a nice way to introduce something like, can't stop smiling when you're saying all these nice stuff, right?

[00:03:26] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I like it all true. And the best part is when I do it, I'm able to read.

[00:03:31] Guest: David Fortin: Nice.

[00:03:33] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Wait a minute. Who's that about? I was gonna say you. You did leave off the most important reason that we're having David on. Paul and I did an analysis of our listening audience, and we found that we resonate most with octogenarians. I don't know what it is, but we thought we need a bridge to the younger people. I can see all the gray in Paul's beard. I've recently had an incident where I was trying to dye my beard. I had an allergic reaction and ended up in the emergency room. So. Beard dye wasn't going to be the way we were going to reach the young people. So. And we thought, who's the hippest, coolest young dude we know? And, and Paul said, David. And now I think it's just because you speak French. Though he was, he liked the. Polyglot thing.

[00:04:11] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Pretty much. I mean, he knows more than just four letter words that are French. So I figured we gotta bring him on and bring down the average age of our audience. David. You know, Glenn and I are both. We're on the downhill slide, whether we like to admit it or not. You're still climbing the mountain, so we figured we'd bring in some age to balance out these old. Old farts. Here.

[00:04:33] Guest: David Fortin: I'll go. I love it. Love it.

[00:04:37] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. And anyone who didn't understand the joke about reading Glenn claim before the start of the show that he can't read. So I, uh, I.

[00:04:43] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Mean, I read, okay, not not well, though.

[00:04:47] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Mr.. I've written multiple books. And what's behind you? Hundreds of.

[00:04:51] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Them. All I, they're all I written. They're all.

[00:04:55] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Speaking of AI, we know that's a big thing. Uh, David likes to talk about. But before we jump into AI, last year, you were recognized as a Microsoft MVP. I know for some of the work you've done in Copilot and also Microsoft Excel, can you talk about what that experience has been like? Tell us a little bit about that. It's been what, eight months now?

[00:05:15] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah. It was uh, roughly in August and now we're in April. So August of 2024. Now we're April 25th. So yeah, it's been really nice. You know, for those who don't know what a Microsoft MVP is, it's a way to recognize people like me, like you, that actually help the community with a Microsoft product, whatever the product. So there are different categories. I'm a Microsoft Excel MVP since I started doing videos on Microsoft Excel. Now I'm doing a little bit more on copilot since, you know, it came out and, you know, Excel is very saturated online. I was like, I think I can help people with Copilot. So basically Microsoft found my videos on YouTube Copilot videos and they wanted some feedback. So they reached out directly to me on LinkedIn, which I think is kind of cool. You know, you just get discovered with, you know, this video had probably 500 views, which is probably nothing for most of all the channels out there. And they reached out and they were like, oh, we like your vibe. And you know, and then someone nominated me MVP because you have to be nominated. Then you apply a form, you know, and then they greenlight you or not. So it's been really great. You know, on the marketing side of things. You know it's really great. Do you buy a course from a CPA that is a course on Excel, or you buy a course from a Microsoft MVP? Right. You buy a course from Microsoft MVP. And especially if it's like Excel for accountants, then you have both, right? So um, just kidding here.

[00:06:42] Guest: David Fortin: But you know, it's been really nice. It's a lot of attention, you know, uh, which I didn't think I would get that early in the journey. Uh, but it's been really great. Lots of discussions with Microsoft as well. I had to visit the Microsoft HQ lately, headquarters in Redmond in the United States, so that was super cool. All these experiences have been really great. All these programs that we can, you know, be part of, some of them are under NDAs. I don't want to breach the NDA here, but yeah, it's been a really, really nice journey. And, you know, it's just these three letters that lots of people don't know what it means, but it's a lot of work. But it's a great recognition from actually the company that helps me with my living. You know, they don't pay you to be an MVP, but they pay you in like, visibility. And, you know, they help you push your stuff. And so it's been quite a great, uh, great thing for me that happened. And uh, maybe I can send you a picture. But when this happened, my mom, she makes cakes, and we, I, she actually made really great looking cakes. And, you know, the logo is right here behind my back, like a blue square or. I don't know. I'll say that in English. A square on the side and, uh, diamond. And then she made a cake for it. So that was super cool. We threw a little party with some friends and just, you know, to recognize this milestone that I'm really proud of.

[00:08:04] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I do remember seeing the cake on. I think it was LinkedIn you put it on or somewhere. I remember seeing that and that is exciting. May I ask you a little later about, uh, you know, World of Warcraft? I know that's one of the opportunities you've had with this before we get there, though, I know, uh, Glenn has a question he's just itching to ask. He's like, Paul, be quiet.

[00:08:22] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I know where you're. I moved that question, but I, uh.

[00:08:26] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I know I did do that, but I know you're itching to ask this one, too.

[00:08:29] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I get asked about copilot all the time, and I am long term bullish on copilot. Microsoft put 15 billion or now they're over 15 billion between their hires and their OpenAI investment. I see what they're trying to do, and I I know they're going to get there. But it's been slow going to get there. It's kind of like, well, Google's the same way with Gemini. You know, they've made strides recently. And I don't know if you saw just the other day there's now Gemini built into Google Sheets where you can put a certain prompt in it. So it's getting there. And I know you know copilot for finance. There's not much to it yet. It's going to get there. But I think like I said, I'm bullish on Microsoft to get it right in the long term. And I picture it, it becomes clippy's revenge. I don't you Clippy is probably before your time.

[00:09:19] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah, I remember it though I remember. Yeah.

[00:09:22] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: But I do think that they're going to get there and it's going to change. I mean, and Paul and I talk about this all the time. We both came up in our careers and most people in, in FP&A  in finance in general, you know, we take pride in the stuff we can do in Excel and the cool models we can build and everything and all the formulas we know. And I think that, you know, copilot is going to make that irrelevant. You're just going to go in and tell Clippy what to do, and it's going to go do all this for you. But what? It's a kind of a three part question here, I guess. So. Tell me where you think copilot is now. And compared to when they first rolled it out and some cool new features you're seeing, and then where you think it's going to go long term and maybe like you know what you think is the time, I'm not asking you to violate it. I don't know if you have any insider information, but, you know, sort of yeah.

[00:10:24] Guest: David Fortin: I don't have much. I cannot violate anything. Um, so where is copilot now in terms of Excel? You mean like, really the Excel part of things? I think it's really great when you don't know much about Excel first. Okay. So apply conditional formatting. You know, like there's very little people that know about conditional formatting. Might sound crazy. Maybe not the people listening to this podcast, but like in general, probably 99% of people that use Excel don't even know about conditional formatting, which blows my mind, right? Like how to remove duplicates or like how to highlight the duplicates in, uh, my my sheet. Right. There you go.

[00:11:02] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: For those who want to see what Clippy looks like and how disturbing he was sometimes I watched.

[00:11:08] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I loved Clippy.

All right. Yeah.

[00:11:12] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Back to our regularly scheduled program.

It's fine. I loved it, I loved it.

[00:11:15] Guest: David Fortin: So, yeah, I think right now where it is, it is to help most people that don't know much about Excel. And you can actually ask questions to it, and it does basic stuff. So for you and I probably this feature, is it worth paying. Probably not. Right. Uh, but still it got really better. Like it was analyzing only a hundred lines of data before it was in preview mode. Now it got into the real mode. You know, I don't know, say that it got generally available. That's what they say at Microsoft, and it got way better at analyzing. It can be hundreds of thousands of lines. And I've tried it and it works pretty well. It takes a little bit more time, right? Uh, but still, it's really good at having a look through data flagging. You know, they're trying to develop this feature that is called clean data, which wasn't possible to do when they first launched it. Uh, and like right now we're in April 2025. It's launched in November of 2023. Uh, and it evolved so much since then. You know, clean data was not a thing. So what clean data allows you to do is, you know, like many people just don't even know about pivot tables. And when you're going to do a pivot table, and the data is not all written the same way, let's say you have David Fortin and a person calls me Dave Fortin, David Fortin.

[00:12:33] Guest: David Fortin: Then you know, it's different entries for your data analysis. Right? So what clean data is doing right now. And it's not perfect. It's getting better. You know, it's just going to scan your data and tell you, hey, we might have this guy, Dave Horton. That is the same as David Ford. Do you want me to replace, uh, the name, you know, to be one name together? So that's the kind of thing it can do right now. This is one thing. Right? But then I thought, like, when I do my presentation, I already talked about my mom, and I'm like, oh, I thought copilot was for. And then I put a picture of my mom. I thought copilot was for my mom because my mom isn't great at Excel, right? She has other skill set, but Excel is not one of them. Right? So I was like, Excel is Copilot is really for basic, you know, basic stuff. But then they released the advanced analysis mode, which I think is really amazing, especially I'm guessing lots of people listening to that is finance people. Right? I've been using Excel for ten years now. I'm young but not that young. Right. And you know, I've never used Python.

[00:13:35] Guest: David Fortin: I never coded anything. I didn't need to. I was doing audit, you know, and didn't need to. But now with Copilot. They released advanced analysis, and I've tried it, you know, a little bit, uh, not extensively, but it can do really nice stuff, right? Python got integrated in Excel last year, and now you can just click on the button. You start the advanced analysis. It will set your Excel or Copilot I should say into a different mode. And then you will be able to ask deep questions like, you know, you have a really large data set. Again, I tried it on large data set. Like you will ask me to do an internal audit. Can you flag me the transactions that make up to 80% of my expenses and you know it will flag it using Python code, which I think is really interesting for someone that you know, wants to start to get a little bit more advanced, or someone like me that never did Python. Now it comes so accessible, you know, and this is something that I think is really cool. Uh, so that's that, you know, that's how I see copilot right now. It's really for beginners, but we're starting to see, okay, accountants that want to go to the next level will be able to do it.

[00:14:47] Guest: David Fortin: I think it's a little bit dangerous as well, you know, because if you don't know Python, it generates some codes for you, but it still opens the door at learning more. Oh, I didn't even know that Python could do that. Let me watch a YouTube video and then, you know, you get lost into all this learning opportunities, right? I think we're in a crazy era right now, and copilot is part of it. So it says it, right. It's your copilot. I don't want it to do like the whole analysis for me. I want him or her or whatever it's called to help me get started. Right. So how I see this whole copilot thing, and maybe it's not where it's going to go, but they recently added, I didn't try this one. It's like if you have two Excel files, you know, some people will just go and do their folders, open the Excel file, do some comparison, maybe do a Vlookup with, you know, two two sheets linked together, which I don't like to do because I feel like it's always buggy, but that's another thing. Like you could ask copilot to actually can you bring a table from this file? And since it's integrated in your Microsoft 365 environment, it's going to bring this table if you add some notes.

[00:15:54] Guest: David Fortin: So you can bring the notes from Q2 by instance, if you're doing your analysis for Q3. So that that kind of thing. And where I see this going and when they announced it, I was like, oh my God, it's going to be crazy. You're going to be able to do a pivot table and just type in the right pane, send this to my boss by email and then it's going to send it. We are not there yet, but I think this is something that we're going to go towards. Like you're making a presentation. You know, I've been FP&A  for for a while. You're making a presentation, you have your Excel file. What do you do? You copy and paste. It's linked. It's linked like a build a presentation from this deck in Excel. And then, you know, it starts a presentation. And then it asks you, okay, which template do you want? And then you just when you use Canva to do images, you can use the eyedropper like I will see. Click on the eyedropper and then boom, emulate this template. That's how I see it. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm crazy. But what I see right now is like, probably just the tip of the iceberg. Is that what we say in English? Like, I feel like it's going to go even further.

[00:16:54] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: The good news is, David, those aren't mutually exclusive. You can be right about this and still be crazy.

Yeah, totally.

[00:17:01] Guest: David Fortin: Exactly.

[00:17:02] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Just so you know, because, I mean, I, I am crazy and I'm wrong all the time, but, uh, no, it's exciting. You know, I think with copilot, I agree with you. I think I know Glenn agrees. Early on it wasn't very good long term. I think we're all bullish on the ability of Microsoft to get it right, right there very much look at any of their products and they are of the approach of, hey, let's release minimum viable products and let the community tell us what we want and develop that over time. So most new things that come out from Microsoft, like if you've used loop, they're kind of kind of like notion. The very early version of that, I was like, er. Now I see it integrated into teams and outlook and continuing to prove. And at some point I'm like, okay, do I switch over and just use that? I use Clickup right now. But we just similar to notion and use that because it'll be so well integrated within Microsoft and Copilot. So I think, you know they're taking that approach. I agree it's getting better. You know Python some of those type of things.

[00:18:06] Guest: David Fortin: And I don't want to go like too off topic here. But in the topic of AI, I think like it's a really common practice, like the marketing teams are pushing it and I don't want to bash anyone, but I've watched a video from I just I'm just going to plug this, um, I watched a video from Marcus Brownlee. He's like the biggest YouTuber that reviews tech, and recently he did a video on Apple Intelligence. You know, I just got iPhone 16 Pro just to, you know, not for the AI part of thing, but like it unlocks AI as starting iPhone 15 Pro. And he talks about how Apple did a publicity, an ad that, you know, you were seeing a lady asking, hey, Siri, when did I meet with this person? Like three weeks ago. Like, where was it? And then Siri answers, and they took off this, uh, this ad because it was, you know, mistaken. And I think it's a really common practice from all these big companies trying to sell the dream. And maybe it's the marketing team. I don't know, but like, uh, that's one of my goals.

[00:19:01] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All the marketing people here, we're finance.

[00:19:04] Guest: David Fortin: I'm a marketing guy now, you know, so but, you know, um, it's one of the common mistakes right now. And it's my role right now. Like when I give trainings, I'm not like, hey, guys, you should go. This is amazing. It's like, okay, right now it's great in Excel for beginners people. It's okay in PowerPoint. But if you want to buy it for like others right now, outlook, etc. it's not that quiet there, you know, yet. It's okay for like the chatbot, the security and stuff like that. So it's my role to tell them like and try stuff, you know, here's what I could do and here's what I could not do. And I feel there's a lot of hype in lots of the topics right now. And I want to be super transparent because that's how I am in life. And yeah, so that's where we're at right now with copilot and copilot.

[00:19:48] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't. I didn't hear anything you just said because ever since you said my mom is not very good at Excel, all I could do is try to think of your mom so bad at Excel jokes, and I couldn't. The best I could come up with is like. And. And actually, Paul's great at Excel jokes, so maybe he can have one. I was going to say, your mom's so bad at Excel that she gets her pivot tables from Ikea. Is that.

[00:20:13] Guest: David Fortin: That's actually a nice one. Did you Google that one? Did you copilot this one ChatGPT or you came up with it? That's so good. I was afraid when we were going this route, I was like.

[00:20:26] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: You don't share our secrets, okay?

[00:20:29] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: You're not even talking to real Paul and Glenn. This is. You're at 100% in this simulation, right?

[00:20:34] Guest: David Fortin: I yeah, I.

[00:20:36] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Pretty much have just outsourced ourselves. Yeah. Glenn and I are on our way to Malaysia. Is that where we're going, Glenn?

[00:20:43] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: That's right, that's right. A couple of weeks. Yeah.

[00:20:46] Guest: David Fortin: You guys are crazy.

[00:20:48] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Well, we already told you that. That's known. Yeah.

[00:20:51] Guest: David Fortin: That's true.

[00:20:51] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, you teach a lot of people about copilot. You really mention a lot of it is trying to level set and help them understand where it's at. You mentioned a lot of the use cases are for beginners. So when you think of finance people. Where do you think they should be trying to use copilot. So let's say you're in an FP&A  role today. You've stepped back in, you're now full time. You're helping that company. How are you going to use copilot.

[00:21:15] Guest: David Fortin: Super great question. I think where the goldmine is, is actually probably not using Copilot in Excel. I mean, yes, to an extent like with Python, as I told you, get your first Python exploration, try some stuff. You have to try it. That's one thing like can we save time? Can we take a single prompt and, you know, send this to the team. So have your tries with your trial. I don't say that with Copilot in Excel, but even without that, without actually paying. You know, the first time I used ChatGPT because just a quick reminder, ChatGPT and copilot, they have the same model, the same large language model underlying GPT four. As of right now, this episode won't be evergreen because in two weeks it will probably change it. You know, it goes so fast.

[00:22:03] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: It will take that long. Two weeks. I figured by tomorrow it would be changed.

[00:22:08] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah, it's crazy crazy fast, right? So, you know, uh, go out there ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot and, you know, the strength of copilot. And I don't want to talk too much about security, but, you know, the Microsoft security, even myself, sometimes I get locked out of my own account because double authenticator, name it the face ID, they scan my fingerprints. You know, it's kind of crazy, but, uh, joke aside, like I remember when I was at Poco, the company that I did the exit for, it was my first M&A right, first merger and acquisition. And the first thing I said is like, hey, my friend is going under an M&A like, what will be the top question they could ask? We are a SaaS company, you know. And then it helped me you know started in brainstorming. So it's so powerful in the term that you are brand new in FP&A , let's say. And then you get to do a new job and you're like, what's your first reflex? You're like, okay, I have a budget file, an Excel file by instance. Here are my three steps. What I do every day I, uh, export the GL accounts from my ERP and then I do a copy paste. But then I get many, many mistakes and you can all only tell your, uh, your steps that you do to the copilot at Microsoft.com and it's going to help you like, hey, how can I improve my process? Right? Should I get a cube? Shall I get that in? And it's going to fly you.

[00:23:32] Guest: David Fortin: Oh, you could have this Excel connector add in that plugs Salesforce and your Excel. And then you're just going to be oh my god I can improve here. So it's just crazy what it can do in terms of like assisting you with stuff that you didn't know even existed. You know, by now, probably a lot of people listening have been using ChatGPT. I've been using Microsoft Copilot. Uh, one other thing. If I was, for instance, I went to a client recently and it was not I will change a little bit. Your question. It was not like only finance people, but it was a small company, 20 people in the tourism industry. And every year they were doing annual reports and they were, you know, 72 pages, PDFs, and they were publicly available. So what I did for them, I probably saved three weeks of work for a single person there. I took their annual report, and I even took the five past year, took all of them PDFs run them through.

[00:24:31] Guest: David Fortin: It was ChatGPT, but same. Same with copilot. Ran ran them through.  ChatGPT. And I made so many analyzes. My first question was, hey, here is my annual report. It has 7072 pages. Can you tell me the five highlights? If I am the CEO of the company, I have to pitch to the board. It gave me an answer. And then to show them how to prompt, I was like, okay, now can you give me the five highlights if I am the CFO? And actually the answers that you receive are different because you actually gave a persona to AI. Second one is actually if you're an FP&A , I took the two years annual report 2023 and 2024, and I asked the chatbot to actually compare them, so I took two PDFs. I actually spotted a section of data that was very similar in terms of, um, you know, the visuals of it. And I asked it to compare and, you know, give highlights. And it did honestly, a really great job. Is it 100% reliable? No. But can it save you a lot of time? Yes. So that's how I see it for a little bit. Yeah. I'll stop talking here.

[00:25:40] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Appreciate that. Appreciate the examples. Yeah. I think you touched on some things when you mentioned, you know, asking a question, summarizing data, giving us less. Those are areas it's great at. I think those are areas everybody should be using. Right. When you get into, hey, how much can I use it for Python. How deep can I get in analysis? You know, there's areas whether it's copilot, ChatGPT all of them are going to struggle. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be trying. Doesn't mean you can't use them. But we're still developing. But as far as summarizing, asking basic questions, you know, helping write an email if you're not at least using it for that. Shame on you. Basically. I mean, I hate to say it, but you're really missing out if you're not at least using it to make yourself more productive. If not, you don't have to be using it for everything. It's not going to do everything.

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[00:27:38] Guest: David Fortin: But you know, I want to jump on this a little bit. Shame on you. Yes and no. Because I know these professionals are very busy. I remember when I was still a CPA, but I remember 50-60 hours a week. You're overwhelmed and it's a catch 22. You're like, hey, I'm not going to get training because it's going to take me more time and I have this job to do. And I just went this morning, you know, right now it's 3 p.m. where I am this morning. I gave three hours of training and it was 15 people, 13 CPAs to lawyers, and it was first time opening copilot for 99% of them. I think 1% already used it. So I showed them the basics and everything I'm talking here. And for them it was like, oh my God. And it's a sexy tool. It's pretty easy to have an entertaining training when you have this sexy tool. A little bit less easy. When it's Excel, it's a little bit less sexy. These days. I don't know why.

[00:28:31] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I don't know, I find Excel sexy and anyone who attends my training finds it, so I don't know if it's the tool or I don't know. I mean, sometimes old men just have it.

[00:28:42] Guest: David Fortin: I. I want to highlight that we're all dressed in the same colors, by the way, like, I don't we didn't call each other. I just love it. We're all wearing pink. Purple. It's insane, I love it.

[00:28:54] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right, Glenn notices I. I messed with his next question when he looks at this. I had a little bit of fun because he has a question he's very passionate about that he likes to ask.

[00:29:06] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: So there's two more, I think, Paul, you have one and I've got one. And this angers me. And that, that said, there's a place and I, I get it. But when someone just, you know, a casual user or even a power user like wants to brag about being a prompt engineer. I want to choke them because it's like saying I'm good at googling and I. And don't get me wrong. Remember before before Google, before search got smart. You would have to put like, you know, you'd have to put the operators in. You'd use.

[00:29:37] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Boolean. Boolean operators.

[00:29:39] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Um, and it would be you know, you'd have to put you.

[00:29:42] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Probably don't remember that, right, David?

[00:29:44] Guest: David Fortin: I don't really know what you're talking about. You guys are too old.

[00:29:49] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Oh, just go play World of Warcraft.

[00:29:51] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah.

[00:29:54] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: No, but I think. But I know we were talking before the show, and prompt engineering does have its place, and I've got a whole thing. Paul, you and I have to do an episode where we talk about the late. We got to do our catch up episode. So I don't want to talk about the new prompting guide that OpenAI just came out with around 4.1, because there are some changes. But tell me your thoughts on prompt engineering, because some people do it really well, some people don't, and a lot of people just don't really understand what gets a good response and what doesn't.

[00:30:23] Guest: David Fortin: I explained this all the time, and I'm not a you know, I'm not a pro at prompting. It's brand new for me. I don't have a PhD in AI. I always say that it's just really important to understand. And there's a very great video on YouTube, which is not mine. It has 3.2 million views and it's called generative AI in a nutshell. And I think it's a brilliant video. Uh, and it just explains how, like it's a machine to forecast the next word. Right? And lots of people just don't understand that. And I think when you start just understanding that with the context and everything, it's so it's so important. And to come back to your, uh, your model discussion. So all these AI tools, you know, and I know we're in future finance. So lots of people are probably using AI, but like, you know, they're using a large language model. And I didn't even know that I thought it was going to be later. But I think, if I'm not mistaken, I've seen it pop up on my ChatGPT. I think it was just on the desktop, not on the mobile, but you see now automatic. And is going to pick the right model depending on how it's going to detect your prompt and depending on which uh, which what your prompt looks like, it's going to pick the right model. Is it model that reasons a little bit more or you know, so I feel like right now it's a lot of people, you know as you said, you want to choke them.

[00:31:39] Guest: David Fortin: I will not go there. But like, you know, I'm not a prompt engineer. I just can't explain to you that, yes, you can assign a persona. Yes, you can ask the model to work its own solution before actually validating yours. Yes, there are some models that are reasoning a little bit. Uh, just get started. If you didn't and I think all these models picking and stuff, I think eventually it's going to go on on its own or it's going to ask you questions like, hey, do you want these types of answers? So yes, be good at prompting. Like no more Google searching anymore. But I think there is a limit anyway. People don't have time to have a look at a six hours course on how to prom. And it's, you know, the truth is like, try it out and you're gonna feel like what's. Okay, I got the best results here. Is it. Was it because of my prom? But I felt I was more detail. And I always tell people talk to. I like it when I was a five years old. And add some details and you will be fine. But yeah, that's my thought on prompting, but I think it's a really important skill. And eventually all of the jobs I think will change a little bit. Like, you will need to know how to use these tools, just like you need to know how to use a computer right now. Right? I think.

[00:32:48] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. And I, um, you know, as the models get better, it's going to get less and less important. But I was working in my company earlier today and there's a pretty long prompt where these prompts get very important if you're trying to get it to do a job that you're going to repeat over and over. So it's more if you're building an assistant or a custom GPT, and you want it to specifically do something. But we broke down. There was this one area where it was hallucinating every time it used the attachment and it was making it up, and it was a pretty long list of instructions. And we finally got to make this an if or an if then statement. And so it was, we just made it conditional. And it's like let it talk to it like a computer. Say if it equals this, else this and then and it fixed it right there. But it's, you know, it's funny you, you talk to it in a lot of ways because it's trained on natural language. You want to talk to it like a human, and that's the whole brilliance of it. But at the end of the day, it is still just a computer. And then when you're asking it to apply logic, if you can make those rules very clear and distinct for it to follow, it makes it better. So I think there is still a place, but if you're just using it to summarize documents, it's like, don't you don't have to tell it.

[00:34:01] Guest: David Fortin: Truth is, like most professionals probably don't need to go that deep. There's a very interesting if you want to go even deeper. I don't know if you saw it, uh, when I built my courses, I always look at the OpenAI website, you know, because, again, it's the same model as, uh, as copilot. And, you know, there is a place where they explain how they made, you know, there, you know, you can build a custom GPT on ChatGPT. And there is a place on their website where they explain how they built their their custom GPT that is made to build custom GPT. So they, they they actually line it up and it's pretty thorough and it's pretty interesting. I don't recommend it if you're a beginner, like you're going to get lost and you're going to be a little bit.

[00:34:42] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Of light reading for bedtime if you're a beginner. Yes, totally. But otherwise, hold off a while.

[00:34:48] Guest: David Fortin: It's Easter, uh, on Sunday. You know, it's a perfect read when you get up before getting with the family and stuff like that. Openai website.

[00:34:55] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Nice. That's good advice. And, you know, I think, you know, with prompting, the whole thing is nobody gets a canned list of things to ask Google, right? You just go type the question. I've never seen anyone gone to Google and typed in, please, you know, please give me a list of searches I should do for this subject. Object? No. But so many people want to be given standard prompts because AI is new and kind of scares them. So I think the message I'm hearing here is, yes, how you write things matters and it can make a difference, you know, depends more on how granular you're getting, how much that matters. But don't expect someone to give you a list of canned prompts. You just got to go in and learn like nobody, you know, like Excel. There are ideas.

[00:35:43] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah. And if you ever buy a course, you know, about prompt like a six hour prompting technique, it's probably going to be more like here are some examples of what you can do with the tool, which is you know what people need as well. Like, oh, I didn't know we can do that. Which prompt did you use? If you use a similar problem then it's probably going to work as well. Right. So I think we're in this exploration phase, which I think is an interesting phase for sure.

[00:36:06] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: So before I get to the last question, let me get into the personal section. Tell our audience for a minute how much time you've spent playing World of Warcraft.

[00:36:17] Guest: David Fortin: Dude, I'm always shy when I say that I cannot calculate it because when I was young, at 16 years old, I sold my account on eBay for $900. My older brothers were taking care of that, but we got the account back and stuff like that. So I kept playing and I built new characters and stuff. So just to let you know, back in the days, taking a character from level zero to level 60, which was the max level back then, was eight days of play. So eight days, eight times 24 hours that you were actually playing. And I had characters I had three level 60 back in 2006. So I was pretty young. I was 13 years old and uh, and my mage, my mage when I was young in 20, in 2008 had 100 days played. So that's 20 400 hours, right? And that's one character. And I only stopped playing from 2013 to 2020. So I only stopped seven years during all that time. So I have to estimate probably around 20,000 hours, sadly. But it made me who I am. I still play to this day. I played Monday for five hours.

[00:37:36] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Hey, we all have to have our passions, but I share that because what did that give you an opportunity to do? Give us a quick kind of one minute of what did you do last year that had to do with World of Warcraft?

[00:37:46] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah. So in December of 2024, I got asked to coauthor the Microsoft Excel World Championship, and the theme was World of Warcraft. And since, you know, I played a lot, just like I told you, I coauthored the case with, uh, Andrew Grigaliunas. And that's actually where we met the first time, uh, in December in Vegas. Me and Paul, that was a super cool experience. I had chills, know all along, you know, you've been playing a game your whole life. You're doing content on Excel, and now, you know, uh, full circle, you know, and crazy. So. So yeah, that was a cool experience.

[00:38:22] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I love that I think this is a good place to move into our personal questions here. So here's how this game works, at least for me. Glenn takes a little bit of a different approach. We like to mix it up.

[00:38:35] Guest: David Fortin: So I'm afraid.

[00:38:38] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: We used AI to come up with some personal questions that we can ask.

[00:38:41] Guest: David Fortin: Oh my God.

[00:38:42] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: We put in our questions a bio. I think your website and I went to work crafting these questions. So you get two options for me. You can pick a number between 1 and 25, but the human in the loop. Or I can pick a number between 1 and 25 and I ask that question. So which one are you going with?

[00:39:01] Guest: David Fortin: We are at Future Finance, so let me decide.

[00:39:05] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So let's see what the not really AI but random number generator. Close enough.

[00:39:11] Guest: David Fortin: In between.

[00:39:12] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Exactly. Here it is. Number 13.

[00:39:17] Guest: David Fortin: 13. Oh my God!

[00:39:19] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: This content inspiration is what it put it under. Where do you draw inspiration for your unique teaching methods and content themes?

[00:39:30] Guest: David Fortin: Oh my God. I consume a lot of content. Um, Instagram? Uh, lots of business podcasts. So basically all I do mine.

[00:39:40] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Right?

[00:39:41] Guest: David Fortin: before when I was doing FP&A , I was listening to you a lot. FP&A . Today, a little bit less right now, to be honest with you. But, um, I listened to a podcast that is called Think Media Podcast. Actually, it's a YouTube course that I bought from them, and it changed my life. Like, I learned how to do a great YouTube video, uh, from them. And that's how I listen. Now I'm listening to a little bit of diary of a CEO. The latest episode from Mr. Beast is insane. So all, you know, listening to people that were, you know, college dropouts that now have a huge business on YouTube. It's where I get my inspiration. I watch the best of the best as well. You know, I watch a lot of Layla, so it's very inspiring to be like, oh, how do we make a quality video? Like tell the tips, you know, like all these? I don't compare myself to Layla. She's way more experienced, way better content. You know, I'm getting there. But lots of people in my niche and lots of people outside of my niche as well. I'm trying to make it up a little bit more, you know, compelling, uh, because this topic can be very boring. So. So yeah, that's where I get all my inspiration. I listen to stories, and you don't have any idea how many like, because when I play Wow, I listen to podcasts because, you know, that's a game where I can do both at once. So that's a lot of podcast listening to, to these business.

[00:41:03] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Basically called this theme art finance. And the stuff we do, you know, kind of boring. Yeah.

[00:41:09] Guest: David Fortin: I mean, lots of it is, to be honest with you. And I'm sure lots of people.

[00:41:14] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Agree, but I.

[00:41:17] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I know so, so my approach is a little bit different. So Paul who uh, which, which bot created these questions?

[00:41:24] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Um, it was ChatGPT and I believe it was 4 or 5. I think it might have been four, but I'm pretty sure it was 4 or 5.

[00:41:31] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: So, you know, they're gonna again, we've got to do our catch up show. They're going to deprecate 4 or 5. It's just it's too it's really it's yeah, yeah, yeah. Too expensive, too slow. And they're doing some other stuff now. So um I don't know if there's a timeline on it, but, uh, but, you know, five to your earlier point, when GPT five comes, it's going to you're not going to have to do the model picker at all. You're just going to type in and anthropic's doing that a little bit. Now with Claude, where you don't have to.

[00:41:55] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, they just reduced the number of options to they used to give you. Do you want a concise style and all the teams. And I was in there yesterday and that's all gone now. And you know they've added a few where hey you can link it directly to your Google Drive or your OneDrive.

[00:42:08] Guest: David Fortin: It's crazy how fast it moves, right? Like, we can talk about something. Someone will listen tomorrow and it's like, what are you talking about? I don't see the option.

[00:42:17] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, it's like there's no such thing as evergreen content with this podcast.

[00:42:21] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: No, no.

[00:42:22] Guest: David Fortin: Which is an issue with my online courses, by the way. But I'll let you ask your question, Glenn. I'm sorry.

[00:42:27] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: So my approach is, um, after we create all the questions, I will go and I'll just pick different models every week and do it. And I tell it, hey, I only get to ask one question. Which one should I ask? So this week I'm using grok. And grok says if you only get one question, I'd recommend asking from numbers to narratives, what inspired your transition from a traditional CPA role to becoming the piggy bank accountant on YouTube? And it goes on to tell me why this question gets to the heart of their journey, revealing the motivation behind their unique career pivot and how they built their brand. It's broad enough to elicit a personal, engaging story while touching on their professional evolution, making it a great choice for insight and inspiration. So grok is really tugging at the heartstrings there, and we want to know what inspired you to make that move.

[00:43:17] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Inspiration.

[00:43:18] Guest: David Fortin: Yes. So super great question. So I'll start from it all goes back to World of Warcraft. I'm not kidding. I was doing Twitch after, uh, while during the pandemic I was really bored. I was like, what can I do? I started doing Twitch, got a little bit more, uh, you know, steady at it. For those who don't know, Twitch is like, you film yourself gaming. So it's live streaming and Twitch for like 1000 hours. And then the pandemic ended and I was like, you know, I would love to do this full time, but, you know, gaming for 12 hours straight, my brain is getting fried. And I'm an accountant and I love to help people. And not that I don't feel that I help people, I do. But you know, I got I got a little bit sick of Twitch and I started doing YouTube, but for, for World of Warcraft. So that's where I started doing videos. And I've always made videos. I always loved it, and at some point I was like, you know what, let's try to mix. You know, my Twitch name was Jambo, which means ham. That's where the piggy bank came from, you know? Uh, so. And then we were brainstorming my previous CEO and I, and we were like, okay, it's time to leave World of Warcraft streaming and start doing professional stuff, you know, because that's what I like to do.

[00:44:24] Guest: David Fortin: And I count it. And it was like a piggy bank account. I was like, let's try that. Right? And then that's where the brand started. And on February 10th of 2023, I took a Friday off. I made a video. I still have my pig hat on. It's my first video on YouTube. You can go see. It's, uh, it's called the Vlookup. Xlookup whatever. You know, it's it's typical video. It's probably my worst video ever. It's my first about Excel. And it's February 10th, 2023. You can go see it on YouTube in the about section. It's going to be written. When did your channel start? February 10th, 2023. Um, and it all started because I saw Cat Norton excel on Instagram doing, you know, these dance moves in Excel. And I was like, you know what, I think I can do that. I think I have everything I need and I could do that. Like, I have everything it needs to do, that kind of thing. And, um. Yeah. So Kat inspired me. I told her the other day I got a call with her. It was super cool. If you don't know her, Kat on or miss Excel on Instagram. And, uh, yeah. So basically that's what happened. And then, uh, we were selling the company, as I told you, like there was a company exit and they didn't fire anyone.

[00:45:31] Guest: David Fortin: But like, I was like, okay, am I at this point? Like, I really enjoyed making videos. I was waking up at 5 a.m. making my videos with my pig out back then, and then I had this very deep voice because I just woke up and I was filming. I could not sleep, I swear I could not sleep, and it was like 5 a.m. to like 8 a.m. and then I was doing my day job. And then after I was getting back at thumbnails and videos. So. So that's how it got started. And, you know, at some point, August 18th uh, 20, 23, 18 of August, that was my last day at work. I told my bosses, you know, like one month before. Two months before. Like, hey, we have this exact thing. I don't know where this is going, but I really enjoy making videos. I'm gonna try my luck at it. I got a, you know, exit package and all that, all that stuff. So I was like, you know what? Let's take this money, let's, you know, drop my full time CPA salary. Let's go all in on YouTube and call it the YouTube marathon. So ChatGPT or Grok told you that it was going to go to the art of the story. So I called it, uh, the, the, the marathon. So as YouTube is very long, it's a marathon.

[00:46:32] Guest: David Fortin: And then I decided to make an in-person marathon as well. So I was like, let's give it a year and see where this goes. And, you know, like everything that we're discussing is happening. Like, I got the Microsoft MVP. Uh, I just came back from LinkedIn learning to do a course with, uh, being a LinkedIn instructor, LinkedIn learning instructor. So, uh, so all, all all this stuff. So I just decided to go all in, and here we go. Here, here we are. So that's why I decided to stop doing another thing. I think actually the thing that motivates me the most is like I keep saying that accounting is boring, but one thing being a CPA, I need to do my mandatory CPE credits. I think you call it in the States here it's different, but it's the same. All these trainings that I was buying were very boring and I was like, maybe I can help on this topic, right? I don't like paying 800 bucks for eight hours training, and I'm sleeping in ten minutes after, you know. So that's why I am also trying to make it a little bit funnier, you know, a bit more fun. I think there's room into this different style. So, that's the whole story. That's my motivation behind. And I just love making videos and helping people. Man, that's about it.

[00:47:46] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: That's great. That's great. Well, you've, uh, it's really been amazing to watch. I know we, we, we spoke on my other podcast a while back and, uh, seeing you continue to, uh, to excel in this area, Excel. See what I did there, Paul?

[00:47:59] Guest: David Fortin: Just another.

[00:48:01] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: That. That is why you are the master of hosting shows. Glenn.

[00:48:06] Guest: David Fortin: It annoys me because for me. Yeah, for me, in English, it's very hard to do wordplay like that. But in French, you never heard my French. It's crazy.

[00:48:17] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: And I will vouch that February 10th, 2023 is the day because David sent me a nice long email about wanting to create a YouTube channel, and his original channel was gaming. So David and I have been messaging now for two, almost two and a half years.

[00:48:37] Guest: David Fortin: Yeah. Best friends now?

[00:48:39] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Pretty much. I'm waiting for him.

[00:48:41] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Hey, wait, wait. What about me? Paul, what are we? What am I, chopped liver? What are we?

[00:48:45] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Well, you're my best co-host.

[00:48:48] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Okay.

[00:48:50] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, on this show, there's not even a second. You are far and away the number one co-host I do a show with. Perfect.

[00:48:59] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Perfect.

[00:49:00] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. I think with that, we probably bored our audience enough for one week. But, uh, David, thank you for joining us. Like Glenn said, it's fabulous to watch how your career has taken off all you've accomplished. Keep up the great work. We're excited for your LinkedIn learning course. Excited for our audience to share this. And as we like to say, go forth and use AI. Don't be afraid of it. Give it a try.

[00:49:24] Guest: David Fortin: For having.

[00:49:25] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Me. How it might help you. So thanks, David.

[00:49:27] Guest: David Fortin: Thank you.

[00:49:29] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to the Future Finance Show. And thanks to our sponsor, QFlow.ai. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice and may your robot overlords be with you.