Grandpa and Co-Pilot Build a Better QuickView

It Started with a Balance Mismatch

I wasn’t trying to build a new feature.

I was comparing balances from a Plaid import against my Excel financial workbook when I noticed something strange.

The numbers looked identical.

The balances matched visually.

But Excel insisted they were different.

So, naturally, I blamed Plaid.

 

Grandpa:

“The BalanceAvailable does not match even though my eyes say, ‘Excuse me, but they match.'”

Co-Pilot:

“Check the underlying decimals. Excel may be carrying values beyond what is displayed.”

Sure enough, after digging deeper, one of my running balance formulas was carrying additional decimal places.

The values displayed as:

1,234.56

but internally were closer to:

1,234.560000000001

A quick ROUND() fixed that issue.

Problem solved.

Or so I thought.

Following the Trail

While investigating the balance discrepancy, I found myself spending too much time navigating between my QuickView Pivot Table and the actual transaction sheets.

The workflow looked something like this:

1. See a transaction in QuickView.
2. Open the account sheet.
3. Find the date.
4. Find the transaction.
5. Make the correction.
6. Return to QuickView.

It worked.

It just wasn’t efficient.

Grandpa:

“I want to double-click a line in the Pivot Table and go straight to the source.”

That started a completely different conversation.

The First Attempt

At first, I thought Excel might already know exactly which source row a Pivot Table came from.

Unfortunately, Pivot Tables don’t expose that information in a convenient way.

So we took a different route.

The Pivot row already contained the transaction date.

If I could capture the double-click event, grab the date, switch to the proper account sheet, and search for that date, I would be close.

Fifteen minutes later I had a working VBA routine.

Well…

Mostly working.

Excel Being Excel

The first version produced errors.

I fixed one issue and another appeared.

Then I discovered one of those classic Excel quirks where:

Cells.Find(…)

and

ActiveSheet.Cells.Find(…)

do not necessarily behave the same way.

Grandpa:

“Adding ActiveSheet fixed it… even though it was active.”

Co-Pilot:

“Yep. That’s Excel being Excel.”

Once the proper worksheet references were added, everything fell into place.

Making It Feel Right

The macro now:

• Determines which account sheet to open.
• Restores the sheet from any filters.
• Re-sorts the transactions.
• Finds the selected date.
• Jumps directly to the source data.

At that point it worked.

But the cursor was difficult to find.

Grandpa:

“My cursor is lost… sniff…”

The answer was simple.

Instead of selecting a single cell, select the transaction columns across the entire row.

A:K

Now the transaction practically glows on the screen.

Much better.

Then I Got Greedy

Every developer eventually reaches this point.

The feature works.

Then you immediately start improving it.

Grandpa:

“How do I stop the flashing and just get to the end point?”

By disabling screen updates during the navigation.

Suddenly the entire jump felt almost instant.

Double-click.

Poof.

There it is.

No dancing around the workbook.

No visual noise.

Just results.

The Best Improvement Was Accidental

After using the feature for a few minutes, I noticed something.

Some dates have several transactions.

The macro would find one transaction, but I really wanted context.

Instead of selecting only one row, the code was modified to highlight every transaction for that date.

Now a jump looks something like this:

11/10/2026  Deposit

11/10/2026  Grocery Store

11/10/2026  Gas Station

11/10/2026  Amazon

All highlighted together.

That turned out to be far more useful than navigating to a single transaction.

What I Learned

The lesson wasn’t about VBA.

The lesson wasn’t about Pivot Tables.

The lesson wasn’t even about Plaid.

The lesson was that working with Co-Pilot is rarely about asking one perfect question.

Most of the time it looks like this:

Grandpa:

“Something seems off.”

Co-Pilot:

“Let’s investigate.”

Grandpa:

“Well, that’s interesting…”

Co-Pilot:

“What if we tried this?”

Grandpa:

“That fixed it, but now I want…”

Co-Pilot:

“Then let’s improve it.”

One question becomes another.

One problem leads to a better design.

One bug becomes a feature.

And before you know it, an evening spent chasing a balance discrepancy has produced an entirely new navigation system for your financial workbook.

Not bad for a fifteen-minute fix.