"MIS reporting" shows up in a lot of first jobs. It sounds like a separate skill. It's really 8 things done well, every day.
Numbers on demand, pivots and date cuts, clean data on one clear page, and a report that refreshes itself.
Prepare all eight.
1-4: numbers on demand, pivots and dates
- 01
SUMIFS and COUNTIFS reports
Totals by region, month, product. Every single day.
=SUMIFS(D:D, B:B, "North", C:C, "Sep") - 02
Lookups across sheets
Pull names, targets, managers from another file.
=XLOOKUP(A2, Emp!A:A, Emp!C:C, "Not found") - 03
Pivot tables with slicers
Group by month, % of total, one slicer for region. Built in 2 minutes.
- 04
Daily, weekly, monthly cuts
Last day of last month, working days between two dates.
=EOMONTH(TODAY(), -1) =NETWORKDAYS(A2, B2)
5-8: clean, clear, automated
- 05
Clean first
TRIM, Remove Duplicates, and Data Validation drop-downs so wrong entries never come in.
- 06
One-page dashboard
4-5 KPIs on top, one trend chart, conditional formatting for targets missed. Keep versions too: dated file names, a change log tab, nothing overwritten.
- 07
Basic SQL to pull raw data
The data is in a database, not your inbox.
SELECT region, SUM(amount) FROM sales GROUP BY region; - 08
Automate the repeat report
Power Query + Refresh All (Ctrl + Alt + F5), or a recorded macro. Same report, 2 minutes.
JD line, decoded
| JD says | They test |
|---|---|
| Advanced Excel | SUMIFS, XLOOKUP, pivots |
| MIS reports | Daily and monthly cuts |
| Data accuracy | Cleaning, validation |
| Dashboards | One page, 4-5 KPIs |
| SQL basics | SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY |
| Automation | Power Query, macros |
More: what "advanced Excel" means in a JD and the free SQL playground.