There's a quiet frustration baked into this question, and it's one we know well. A self-taught Excel user is doing exactly what they should: trying to build something that works for them, not against them. The problem isn't the data or the goal, it's that the tool keeps forcing manual labor where automation should be obvious. When a cell reference like H2 doesn't register the way it should, the spreadsheet stops being a tool and starts being a gatekeeper. That's not a user error. That's a design failure.
What this person is describing is the gap between what they need and what traditional spreadsheets demand in return. They want to count values by month, without retyping date ranges or adding helper columns that clutter the sheet. They want year-over-year comparison without rebuilding the same logic every time. That's not an unreasonable ask. It's the core promise of what a spreadsheet should do, yet the friction lives in the details: how dates are stored, how formulas interpret cell references, how the interface punishes a slight formatting mismatch. The workaround, typing each date range individually, gets the job done but it scales terribly. Every new month becomes another manual step. Every new year becomes a fresh round of repetitive edits.
This is exactly where the conversation about AI-native tools becomes practical instead of theoretical. The user isn't asking for a magic button that guesses their intent. They're asking for a system that respects the structure of their data and the logic of their workflow. When a tool understands that a cell containing a date is still a date, even if it's referenced indirectly, the whole process opens up. When you don't need helper columns to bridge the gap between months and years, the spreadsheet stops being a patchwork of workarounds and starts being a real reflection of how you think. That's the transformation worth pursuing. Not for the sake of novelty, but because the current approach forces people to adapt to the tool instead of the other way around.
The fact that this user is self-taught and already pushing for automation says a lot. They're not looking for hand-holding. They're looking for a better path forward. The good news is that path exists, but it requires moving beyond the habit of treating every formula like a one-off transaction. It means expecting your spreadsheet to handle the logic of time, reference, and context without you having to spell everything out. That's not a luxury. That's the baseline. So when a cell reference fails to compute, the answer isn't to find another manual workaround. It's to demand a tool that treats your data like it's connected, because it is.