The Excel TEXT function enables you to specify numbers and date format.

A cascade diagram, also known as a waterfall or bridge chart, is a special type of chart often used in accounting for financial statements. This chart represents positive and negative cash flows as ascending or descending bars of different colors. Each column except the first one starts at the endpoint of the previous column:

You can easily count the number of unique values of the range using a simple formula.

Excel offers many different charts, but for some data, pre-defined charts such as area or line charts seem fine but are inaccurate by definition. For example, changes in prices, invested amounts, or any discrete data happen at some regular or irregular points, but the value remains constant between the points:

Today there are many different designs of pie charts. This tip is about the modern design of progress smoothed circle pie charts.
See also How to create an Arc length chart in PowerPoint.

Vertical lines are usually added to the chart to highlight the current date, a critical date, or a deadline. There are many ways to add a vertical line to the existing chart. Errors bars are the easiest way to add a vertical line to a scatter plot. See how to add a vertical line to a line or bar chart or a horizontal line to a scatter plot, line, or column chart:

Sometimes you can give your charts a more impressive view by showing deviations of some real process from its expected flow.

A speedometer, dial, or gauge chart displays a single value (usually displayed as an arrow) on a colored or sectored dial. The speedometer dial can be a half or a whole circle (the simplest option) or a sector located symmetrically vertically:

The distribution of market shares or stocks of the investment portfolio often is illustrated by pie or doughnut charts. The illustration of multi-market shares and multiple investment portfolios calls for different approaches. The Marimekko chart (also known as Mekko chart, or mosaic plot) comes to the rescue.

The waterfall chart, also known as the cascade or bridge chart, shows the positive or negative change of the initial value under the influence of various factors, such as time. The main purpose of this chart is to show the viewer how the value has increased or decreased over a certain period or under the influence of certain factors: