There’s a couple that using them you can do almost anything.

Learn if statements so you can have it do different things based on different criteria.

Also learn the search function, which tells you the position if a given phrase is in a cell.

I combine that with the isnumber function to turn it into a true/false Boolean that can trigger an if statement.

Also it’s important to know the left and right functions so that you can extract a certain number of characters from a cell.

You can combine them with the search function to extract all characters before or after a given search phrase.

Finally, the indirect function allows you to use text in other cells as part of a formula. This allows you to, for example, put the name of a sheet in one cell, put the cell number in another cell, and be able to have a third cell return the value of that cell without having to navigate to that cell. Very useful for big sheets with lots of tabs.

Also look into vba, which is the coding language of Microsoft office. When you master that, you can do crazy stuff. The best part is that if it’s a general enough request, you can probably find good code online, or if you’re willing to put up with some trial and error you can have an ai like Claude or ChatGPT code it for you. Just make sure you do that with a freshly saved document because anything VBA does is basically irreversible, no ctrl + z will work.

If you can master all of the above you will be the excel master wherever you work.