Why it replaces manual cleanup
Data → Get Data opens the same Power Query engine that Power BI uses. Every transformation you apply is recorded as a step and replayed on refresh.
The practical consequence: the monthly report you rebuild by hand becomes a single Refresh All. This is the highest-leverage skill in modern Excel and most people never learn it.
Common transformations
Remove columns, filter rows, change type, split column by delimiter, replace values, trim and clean text.
Unpivot turns wide month-per-column data into tall rows — the fix for almost every awkward spreadsheet export. Merge joins two queries; Append stacks them. Group By aggregates before loading.
Combining files from a folder
Get Data → From File → From Folder. Point it at a directory and Power Query builds a sample transformation, then applies it to every file and appends the results.
Drop next month's file into the folder and hit Refresh. No formulas, no copy-paste, no error.
Loading options
Close & Load To lets you choose a Table on a worksheet, a PivotTable, or Connection Only. Connection Only keeps the query in memory without writing rows — use it for staging queries feeding other queries.
Load to the Data Model when you want relationships and DAX measures, which is Power Pivot territory.