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Looking to upskill your team in Microsoft Excel and Office? BOTI delivers accredited, instructor-led Excel training to South African businesses — beginner to advanced — in-house at your premises, on-site nationally, in public classrooms, or online. Request a quote and we respond within one working day.
We are BOTI (Business Optimization Training Institute), an accredited corporate training provider based in South Africa with a catalogue of 450 courses and a client list that includes Sasol, Glencore and the City of Johannesburg. This page is the hub for everything Excel and Microsoft Office: what we cover, how we deliver it, how it’s accredited, and how you fund it from your existing skills-development budget.
Request a quote or book a 15-minute callback →
Who this Excel training is for
This is built for the person buying training on behalf of a team — not for an individual chasing a free course. If you are an HR or L&D manager, a business owner, or a department, finance or operations lead, you are in the right place.
Typical buyers come to us because:
- A finance, sales or admin team is spending hours on spreadsheets that should take minutes.
- New hires arrive with uneven Excel skills and there’s no consistent baseline.
- Managers want reliable reporting, dashboards and forecasting instead of error-prone manual workbooks.
- The business needs to spend its Skills Development budget productively and earn BBBEE skills-development points.
We scope the training to your team’s real workflows — your reports, your data, your templates — so people return to their desks able to apply it the same week.
Not sure where your team sits? Download our free Excel & Office Skills Audit + Team Competency Matrix to benchmark each person from beginner to advanced before you commit to a programme.
The full range of Microsoft Office training
Excel is the core of what most teams ask for, but we cover the full Microsoft Office stack so you can train one team across several applications under a single arrangement.
| Application | What we cover | Typical audience |
|---|---|---|
| Excel — Beginner | Navigation, formatting, basic formulas, charts, printing | New staff, admin, anyone building a baseline |
| Excel — Intermediate | Functions, IF/VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, named ranges, data tools | Analysts, finance, sales ops |
| Excel — Advanced | PivotTables, Power Query, dashboards, automation, complex formulas | Reporting, finance, BI users |
| Microsoft Word | Long documents, styles, mail merge, templates, review tools | Admin, legal, HR, proposals |
| PowerPoint | Slide design, master slides, charts, professional decks | Sales, management, marketing |
| Outlook | Email management, calendars, tasks, rules, productivity | All office staff |
| Power BI | Data modelling, DAX, interactive reports and dashboards | Analysts, management reporting |
| MS Project | Project planning, scheduling, resourcing, tracking | Project managers, PMOs |
Most teams start with an Excel programme and add Word, PowerPoint or Power BI for specific roles. We’ll help you map applications to job functions during scoping.
Explore the detailed guides for the most-requested topics:
- Microsoft Excel for beginners — the right starting point for staff with little or no Excel experience.
- Advanced Excel training — PivotTables, Power Query, dashboards and automation for power users.
- Essential Excel formulas and functions — the formulas every analyst should know, explained.
- Power BI training — turn Excel data into interactive dashboards and reports.
- Excel with Copilot — using Microsoft’s AI assistant to speed up everyday spreadsheet work.
This page is the pillar for our Microsoft Excel training cluster — start here, then drill into the topic guide that matches each role on your team.
How a team programme comes together
You don’t need a finished training plan before you contact us. A typical engagement runs in four short steps:
- Scope. We talk through your team’s roles, current skill levels and the reports they actually work with — ideally informed by the free skills-audit matrix above.
- Recommend. We propose a programme (applications, levels, format and duration) and send a written quote within one working day.
- Deliver. An instructor trains your people using your own workbooks and templates, in the format you’ve chosen.
- Embed. Delegates leave with practical assets and a certificate, and we provide documentation to support your skills-development reporting.
The whole point is that the learning maps to live work, so the value shows up in the next reporting cycle — not in a generic exercise file.
Accredited vs non-accredited: which do you need?
Both have a place, and the right choice depends on why you’re training your staff.
Accredited training is delivered against a registered qualification or unit standard and quality-assured through the relevant SETA. For computer and Excel skills, the relevant route is the MICT SETA IT End User Computing qualification (SAQA ID 61591), which BOTI is accredited to deliver. Note that these unit-standard qualifications are migrating to the new QCTO system — accredited enrolment is available now (last enrolment on the legacy qualification is 30 June 2026), so please confirm current accreditation when you book. Learners are assessed and can earn a recognised, certificated outcome. Choose accredited when you need formal proof of competence, want the learning to count toward a qualification, or are reporting structured skills development for compliance.
Non-accredited (short course) training is faster, more flexible and focused purely on practical skill. There’s no formal assessment against a unit standard, but delegates still receive a BOTI certificate of attendance. Choose this when speed and on-the-job capability matter more than a formal credential.
For most Excel and Office upskilling, teams choose practical short courses for the skills and select accredited routes where compliance or a qualification is the goal. We’ll advise on the best mix during scoping — including how each option affects your BBBEE skills-development reporting.
Not sure which route fits? Book a 15-minute callback →
Delivery formats and national reach
You choose the format that fits your team, your premises and your budget.
| Format | Best for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| In-house / on-site | Whole teams; content tailored to your data and templates | At your premises, nationwide |
| Public / scheduled | One or two delegates; fixed curriculum, set dates | Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria |
| Online (live virtual) | Distributed or remote teams; instructor-led | Anywhere in SA |
| Online (LMS / self-paced) | Large rollouts; flexible pacing and tracking | Anywhere, any time |
We deliver across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria and remotely to teams anywhere in South Africa. In-house delivery is usually the most cost-effective option once you have a handful of delegates, because we come to you and tailor the content to your actual workbooks.
How to fund your team’s training
You very likely already have a budget for this — it just isn’t always labelled “training.”
Every employer above the SDL threshold pays the Skills Development Levy at 1% of payroll. That levy funds a structured skills-development system you can draw value from when you train staff and report it correctly. Training your team also contributes to the skills-development element of your BBBEE scorecard, where the target is 6% of the leviable amount — points that directly improve your BBBEE rating.
In short, planned Excel and Office training is rarely a pure cost. Spent and reported well, it:
- Uses budget you’re already contributing through the levy.
- Earns BBBEE skills-development points.
- Builds measurable capability you can demonstrate to clients and auditors.
We’ll structure your programme and supporting documentation so it lines up cleanly with your skills-development planning. Bring us your goals and we’ll show you how to make the spend work twice.
Why train with BOTI
- Accredited provider. BOTI is an accredited training provider — Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA ACC/2016/07/0045, and a QCTO Quality Partner. Computer and Excel skills are accredited through the MICT SETA IT End User Computing qualification (61591); these legacy unit-standard qualifications are migrating to the QCTO system (last enrolment 30 June 2026), so please confirm current accreditation when you book.
- 450 courses. Excel and Office sit inside a broad catalogue, so you can consolidate multiple training needs with one partner.
- Blue-chip track record. Trusted by organisations including Sasol, Glencore and the City of Johannesburg.
- Tailored to your team. In-house programmes built around your real reports, data and templates — not generic exercises.
- National reach. Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and remote delivery across South Africa.
- Funding-smart. We help you align the spend with your Skills Development budget and BBBEE skills-development points.
You can also browse our wider course catalogue to combine Excel with other skills your team needs this year.
Ready to upskill your team?
Tell us how many people you need to train and where they sit today, and we’ll come back within one working day with a recommended programme and a quote.
- Request a quote or book a 15-minute callback → — for in-house and team training, nationwide.
- Download the free Excel & Office Skills Audit + Team Competency Matrix → — benchmark your team before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
Is BOTI’s Excel training accredited?
Yes. BOTI is an accredited training provider — Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA ACC/2016/07/0045, and a QCTO Quality Partner. Accredited Excel and computer training is delivered through the MICT SETA IT End User Computing qualification (SAQA ID 61591). These unit-standard qualifications are migrating to the new QCTO system — accredited enrolment is available now (last enrolment on the legacy qualification is 30 June 2026), so please confirm current accreditation when you book. We also offer practical non-accredited short courses where speed and on-the-job skill matter more than a formal credential. Each delegate receives a BOTI certificate.
Can you train our team in-house at our offices?
Yes. In-house and on-site delivery is our most popular option for teams. We come to your premises anywhere in South Africa and tailor the content to your own reports, data and templates. It’s usually the most cost-effective choice once you have several delegates.
Where do you deliver Excel training?
We deliver in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, on-site at your premises nationwide, and online (live virtual or self-paced LMS) to teams anywhere in South Africa.
How can we fund Excel and Office training for staff?
Most companies fund it from their Skills Development budget. Employers pay the Skills Development Levy at 1% of payroll, and training staff contributes to the skills-development element of your BBBEE scorecard, where the target is 6% of the leviable amount. We help you structure and document the programme to support that reporting.
Do delegates get a certificate?
Yes. All delegates receive a certificate on completion. Where you choose an accredited route, the outcome is assessed and certificated against the MICT SETA IT End User Computing qualification (61591); as these legacy qualifications migrate to the QCTO, please confirm current accreditation when you book.