SQL Alternatives to Excel Cleanup

Context

Financial analysts at Paramount often move from spreadsheet-based cleanup into repeatable SQL workflows for reporting in tools like Paramount+ finance dashboards and ad revenue reporting. Interviewers ask this to see whether you can translate familiar Excel habits into scalable SQL patterns.

Core question

What Excel functions do you use most often for data cleanup and analysis, and how would you perform the same work in SQL? In your answer, explain:

1. Which Excel functions you rely on most for cleanup and analysis
2. The closest SQL equivalents for filtering, lookups, text cleanup, conditional logic, and aggregation
3. When SQL is a better choice than Excel for recurring financial analysis
4. Common mistakes analysts make when moving from spreadsheets to SQL

Scope guidance

Keep the answer practical and role-relevant. The interviewer is not looking for a list of every Excel formula; they want to hear how you think about data wrangling, reproducibility, and scaling analysis in a PostgreSQL environment.