I want to upload an Excel budget to Claude and ask it to flag inconsistent totals. The workbook has formulas across several sheets, and some figures depend on an external workbook that I won’t be uploading.

My concern is the difference between reading a formula, reading its last saved result, and actually recalculating it. A total can look perfectly reasonable while still reflecting old input data.

When using Claude for Excel formula auditing, how can I establish which of those it has actually done? Would a small test workbook with deliberately outdated cached formula values be a useful check, or could the upload process change what reaches the model?

I’m not asking it to certify the budget. I just need its review to distinguish “this formula appears consistent” from “this total has been recalculated and verified,” and to flag anything it cannot check because an external dependency is missing.