Using Google Workspace to Revolutionize Your Budgeting

Is your company struggling with tracking budgets and spending? Is monitoring financial progress a constant challenge for your team? If so, you're not alone. Many small or mid-sized organizations find themselves lacking a centralized, efficient system for financial oversight. But what if there was a ✨ free ✨ way to streamline your budget tracking and enhance team collaboration?

I'm excited to share a solution: a dynamic, real-time budget tracking system that integrates Google Workspace tools: Drive, Sheets, Forms, and Looker Studio. An approach that ensures visibility, efficiency, and transparency, transforming how you manage finances.

The Problem: Budgeting Chaos

Like many, I've worked in organizations that faced significant challenges with prepackaged systems or a lack thereof:

• No Centralization: Lacking a single place to track project budgets and spending
• Difficulty Monitoring: Keeping tabs on spending, getting/receiving updates, was a significant hurdle
• Need for Automation Without Breaking the Bank: An easily accessible, scalable, and semi-automated solution that doesn't cost more than you'd benefit

The Solution: A Budget Tracking System

I addressed these issues by creating a system that leverages the power of Google Workspace. By integrating Google Forms for data intake, Sheets for budget and spending data, Looker Studio for visualizations, and Drive for storing invoices and receipts, we've built a robust and dynamic tracking system.

How it Works: Store, Record, and View

The system is broken down into three simple steps:

1. Store: Save invoices or receipts to Drive
2. Record: Use Google Sheets/Forms to create a log
3. View: Visualize the data through interactive dashboards in Looker Studio

Getting Started: Implementation

Here's a quick guide to implementing your budget system:

• Google Sheet:
  • Create a copy of the Budget Tracker Template
  • Edit the budget tab to add categories and their respective budgets
• Google Form:
  • Create a copy of the Budget Tracker Form
  • Edit the categories section - be sure to match the categories from the sheet*
  • Under the Response tab, link the form to your budget tracker sheet
• Looker Studio:
  • Create a copy of the Looker Studio Template
  • Import your budget tracker Google Sheet

The Impact: Real Improvements

Smaller companies, though at times necessary, can rely excessively on accounting consultants for financial reports. Although most consultants possess the tools, the delivery of reports is often too delayed. But now, you can swiftly create PDF reports from your new Looker Studio dashboard. Letting you proactively and effectively manage your budget without overburdening third-party partners.

Want to use your website to track incoming donations? Embed your Looker Studio dashboard right into your website.

Team time management will improve as you can reduce the number of finance meetings or conversations solely for providing data-centered updates. With the power of automation, the dashboard updates as soon as you submit the form, shortening the time it takes to gather data.

Transparency amongst team members also improves, as budgetary information is no longer locked into silos.

Collaboration is key in smaller companies. The Store, Record, and View three-part structure allows you to work together to maintain your organization's financial health without jumbled roles, while establishing clear responsibilities.

Grow & Scalability

Don't stop at Google Sheets, import data from BigQuery or Airtable into Looker Studio in a breeze. While this system does not replace an accountant, it can scale beyond departments and be something for company-wide expenses.

*Bonus Tip

Add a drop-down menu to your Google form for Projects to provide a more detailed look at your spending. This makes it easier to add project-specific pages to your dashboard instead of having multiple trackers for each project.