How do I create a budget spreadsheet?
Creating a budget spreadsheet is an effective way to manage your business finances using a spreadsheet tool like Google Sheets.
There are three main ways to create a budget spreadsheet:
- Build a budget spreadsheet manually by setting up your own columns and rows for income and expenses.
- Leverage AI to build a budget spreadsheet for you in seconds.
- Download, customize, and use a pre-populated budget spreadsheet template.
Each method ranges in cost, complexity, and functionality. However, all methods can help you stay on track with your financial goals.
I typically don’t recommend using the manual method, as it’s quite time-consuming and normally offers limited functionality (unless you’re a spreadsheet expert).
Paid Google Workspace users may want to utilize Gemini AI (Google’s AI tool) to help them craft a visual, compelling budget template.
However, I recommend using a pre-populated budget spreadsheet like Sheetify Bookkeeping to create an effective and customizable budget spreadsheet.
What is a budget spreadsheet?
Having an accurate budget is indispensable for strategic planning, performance improvement, and the overall long-term success of a small business.
A budget spreadsheet is a user-friendly tool that helps you track your weekly, monthly, or annual ingoing and outgoings.
Essentially, a budget spreadsheet can give you a snapshot of your financial health by providing an organized layout of your income, expenses, and financial goals.
Using a budget spreadsheet involves manually entering your financial information into a digital (or physical) table to monitor and manage your business finances effectively.
It is possible to create your own manual budget spreadsheet. However, this can be limited in terms of functionality unless you know how to create formulas and Apps Scripts.
I highly suggest using a spreadsheet template to track your monthly, weekly, and yearly finances.
Spreadsheet templates are formatted with pre-populated automations, headers, and titles and are typically customizable.
Some even come with built-in graphs, calculations, and multi-currency options.
These spreadsheets can give you a comprehensive overview of your finances, guiding you toward achieving your financial objectives.
Why use a budget spreadsheet?
Using a budget spreadsheet offers numerous advantages that streamline and enhance your financial management!
Firstly, it provides clear visibility of your income, expenses, and financial commitments, making it easier to see exactly where your money goes and comes from each month.
Using a budget spreadsheet also makes organizing your finances more systematic, allowing for simple categorization of different expense and income sources.
This setup helps you track the actual spending versus budgeted amounts to identify areas where you may overspend or underspend.
Additionally, it serves as a critical tool for setting financial business goals and identifying financial trends.
Plus, having all your financial information in one place helps with making informed decisions regarding purchases and investments.
And let’s not forget that budget spreadsheets are highly customizable! This means you can adapt them to your unique business and brand.
A well-maintained and accurate budget spreadsheet essentially acts as a total financial dashboard, empowering you to make informed financial decisions for your business.
Top 5 Google Sheets budget spreadsheet templates
The good news is that many awesome budget spreadsheet templates are readily available to use and download.
My top 5 favorite budget templates for Google Sheets users are:
- Google Sheets template gallery's monthly or yearly free budget templates.
- SmartSheet's range of weekly, monthly, personal, simple, or business Google Sheets free templates.
- GooDocs range of 200+ Google Sheets budget templates.
- Etsy's 1000+ paid and customizable budget templates.
- Sheetify Bookkeeping's all-in-one Google Sheets bookkeeping template.
Best budget spreadsheet template (Sheetify Bookkeeping)
Sheetify Bookkeeping is undoubtedly the best Google Sheets budget template on the market today for small and micro-businesses.
Why? It’s user-friendly, cost-effective, and feature-rich. What more could you ask for?
For just one payment of $47, Sheetify Bookkeeping gives you the tools you need to manage your business finances in a way that suits you.
With specialized and editable 'Income' and 'Expenses' sheets, pre-installed formulas, and integrated Apps Scripts, you can quickly view your spendings in one glance.
Simply input your transactions, and Sheetify Bookkeeping automatically calculates the net cost and all-time total cost of all items.
Plus, the integrated tax estimation calculator allows you to factor in how much tax you need to pay and how that will affect your budget.
Sheetify Bookkeeping also comes with seven dynamic visual dashboards, each crafted to maintain a close watch over different areas of your finances. These dashboards include:
- Monthly overview.
- Annual summary.
- Comprehensive 5-year projection.
- Tailored dashboard that allows you to define specific timeframes.
- Comparative analysis of revenue, costs, and profitability.
- Sales tax visualization for understanding fees and tax obligations.
- Balance sheet overview.
These visual representations can be effortlessly emailed to your team through the 'Reportify' feature to showcase financial goals, budget forecasting, or overspending.
It’s worth mentioning that Sheetify Bookkeeping is much more than a budget spreadsheet template, rather a small business total accounting solution.
Find out more about Sheetify Bookkeeping’s incredible small business bookkeeping features here.
As you can see, you can create a budget spreadsheet in many ways.
The simplest and most flexible way to create a budget spreadsheet for Google Sheets users is by using Sheetify Bookkeeping.
So, purchase Sheetify Bookkeeping today and build the budget spreadsheet of your dreams–I promise you won’t regret it.