Because it was launched in 1985, Microsoft’s Excel has grow to be the go-to spreadsheet program amongst monetary professionals—and, certainly, it stays a strong device. There are loads of causes why it’s retained its recognition for many years. However the rise in cloud computing, particularly because the starting of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the exponential development of the quantity of knowledge companies gather have modified the best way we work, presumably without end.

Right now’s collaborative, cloud-based enterprise setting is the place some great benefits of Google Sheets actually stand out. Nonetheless, there are various finance and enterprise professionals who’re nonetheless working with Excel spreadsheets in the identical manner that many people discovered within the precloud period, even those that have switched to Microsoft’s cloud-based Microsoft 365.

In 2016, the commercial equipment manufacturing firm the place I oversee monetary knowledge analytics took the numerous step of transferring all of its 11,000 staff to Google’s G Suite, now Google Workspace—becoming a member of the rising variety of companies making the swap from Excel. Consequently, I’ve been utilizing Google Sheets virtually each day since then, changing into a self-taught professional in its performance and modern methods of working. I’ve used Google Sheets to construct discounted cash-flow fashions for giant acquisitions, to handle advanced integration initiatives, for monetary planning and evaluation, and, fairly often, as a alternative for a whiteboard after I need to sketch one thing in a web-based assembly.

On this article, I share a number of the benefits of Google Sheets, highlighting the options which have dramatically improved my productiveness. I additionally present an introduction to Google Apps Script, a strong device for automating workflows and lengthening Google Sheets’ performance.

I don’t, nonetheless, present a head-to-head function matchup of Excel versus Google Sheets; functionalities change so rapidly that such an evaluation would grow to be out of date inside weeks. As an alternative, I deal with Google Sheets’ benefits and the brand new methods of working that the emergence of on-line productiveness instruments have enabled. I additionally contact on a number of the adverse features of creating the shift from Microsoft.

The Benefits of Google Sheets

The primary benefits Google Sheets has over Excel are seamless collaborative performance, the flexibility to deal with extraordinarily giant initiatives and knowledge units by way of its integration with BigQuery, and the automation alternatives obtainable by way of Google Apps Script. Whereas Excel and others additionally supply these capabilities, Google has made them so intuitive and end-user-friendly that even probably the most change-averse finance professionals can rapidly rise up to hurry and begin seeing tangible advantages.

Simple Collaboration

Essentially the most fast benefit of utilizing Sheets is the capacity to collaborate seamlessly. Within the outdated fashion of working, you’d use a grasp file that somebody needed to “personal,” which was (in a finest case state of affairs) saved in a shared community folder or painstakingly emailed backwards and forwards amongst customers.

In distinction, Sheets incorporates a number of modes of collaborating, starting from the asynchronous—when collaborators work independently and largely at completely different instances, in the identical file—to real-time simultaneous collaborative modifying. With asynchronous modifying, you should use the remark function to alert individuals to questions or considerations and assign them duties that they’ll mark full after they end them.

Good chips put fast info on the person’s fingertips with out their having to click on out of the doc. For instance, individuals chips determine the particular person liable for particular duties and supply a hyperlink to their contact info, whereas file and calendar occasion chips put context and extra supplies at hand. Mixed with the timeline view function, which permits customers to visualize time-associated knowledge, sensible chips make Sheets a wonderful hub not just for monetary evaluation but additionally as a hub for actions and data, together with all features of initiatives.

Modifying a spreadsheet stay with different colleagues is a strong manner of working. The productiveness of two or three people who find themselves all extremely expert with Google Sheets rapidly constructing out a monetary or working mannequin collectively in actual time is a exceptional sight in comparison with the outdated manner of working. The a number of cursors in numerous colours, transferring throughout the display on the similar time to construct a mannequin, look virtually like a time-lapse video of a portray being created.

There’s additionally room for several types of individuals. Not everybody wants to have the ability to edit a spreadsheet, for instance. View- and comment-only choices preserve safety and knowledge integrity whereas granting visibility to those that want it.

Constructed-in Model Management

For those who’ve ever had the painful expertise of a spreadsheet crash past restoration that leads to hours of misplaced work, you may need developed the behavior of saving recordsdata continuously. That is nice—if cumbersome—for one particular person working alone, however when a number of variations of a file start to flow into amongst colleagues and somebody forgets to replace the file identify, chaos can ensue.

Google Workspace makes it attainable to have only one file all through the lifetime of the undertaking, due to its built-in model monitoring. Accessible by way of “See model historical past” within the menu, this function means that you can see all edits made to a doc by way of a useful timeline. It additionally consists of the identify of the one who made every change. Each alteration is saved and you may “rewind” to any earlier level within the file’s life, again to when it was first created. Not solely that, however for any particular person cell, you’ll be able to choose “Present edit historical past” and click on again by way of every edit to see who modified it, when, and to which worth.

This function is out there to each Google Workspace person. Microsoft customers will want both SharePoint or OneDrive to entry model historical past for Excel.

Working at Scale

One of many misconceptions my colleagues and I had once we adopted Sheets was that it could be nice for small calculations—kind of like a complicated calculator—however not helpful for bigger fashions or knowledge units. However because it seems, Google Sheets is simply as highly effective as a desktop software. As I display beneath, Google Sheets can capably deal with giant monetary fashions, and it may possibly hook up with Google BigQuery to investigate enormous knowledge units.

For instance, once you’re engaged on an M&A undertaking, one of many many paperwork you’re prone to want is a monetary mannequin to gather all of the related historic monetary knowledge and varied forward-looking situations based mostly on drivers. For those who typically work on M&A, then you almost certainly have a tendency to begin from a template that accommodates all the pieces you want, corresponding to standardized monetary statements, valuation calculations, and so on. The present doc then grows over the course of the undertaking to include monetary and tax due diligence changes into the historic financials, utilizing business/market due diligence to help the varied situations for monetary projections.

Over the course of a number of months, the file can develop to dozens of tabs with a fancy net of hyperlinks between them. Sheets not solely handles the massive quantity of interconnected knowledge effectively however, due to its model historical past function, you’ll by no means once more yell “Who modified the low cost price?!” when your valuation mannequin output is unexpectedly off.

Analyzing Very Giant Information Units

As I discussed, Google Sheets connects to Google BigQuery, Google Cloud’s knowledge warehouse and analytics engine, which lets you analyze enormous knowledge units instantly in Sheets. BigQuery can home all your group’s knowledge and make it obtainable for analytics use, whether or not for evaluation by area consultants corresponding to finance professionals or for superior machine studying use circumstances led by an information science staff.

To display the facility of this course of, I as soon as used the next instance in a Sheets coaching session at work:

1. From inside Sheets, I linked to one of many public knowledge units in BigQuery: Chicago taxi journeys. On the time, this contained 195 million rows of knowledge.
2. Then I created a pivot desk from the total knowledge, with the time of day and day of week on the 2 axes, and the variety of journeys as values.
3. Lastly, I utilized conditional formatting, corresponding to utilizing crimson to symbolize peak hours, to make the patterns stand out extra clearly.

All the course of took lower than two minutes.

Until you’re within the taxi enterprise, this specific knowledge evaluation is probably not very helpful, but it surely exhibits how rapidly you’ll be able to analyze giant knowledge units utilizing the mixture of BigQuery and Sheets to successfully acquire and talk insights.

To supply one other instance of Sheets pivot desk utilization, a finance skilled may want to tug knowledge from completely different programs into one evaluation—maybe one consolidation system holds higher-level knowledge that must be reconciled towards a number of detailed knowledge sources. If your organization makes the information obtainable by way of BigQuery, you’ll be able to, with only a few clicks, hyperlink every knowledge supply into one spreadsheet and put the related views subsequent to one another. You’ll be able to then rapidly carry out typical spreadsheet calculations proper subsequent to—and utilizing knowledge from—your BigQuery-powered pivot tables or extracts.

You can even create charts and formulation utilizing knowledge from BigQuery knowledge units. You probably have all your monetary knowledge in BigQuery, you’ll be able to develop analyses and experiences in a short time.

Connecting to Exterior Information Sources

Having the ability to pull knowledge right into a spreadsheet as a way to work with it’s a basic want for monetary professionals. Google Sheets affords quite a few built-in formulation that do that, such because the Googlefinance method, which helps you to pull knowledge instantly from Google Finance. Though not similar to an expert service corresponding to Bloomberg, it’s nonetheless a wonderful device for acquiring public inventory and forex info, like these closing bell costs for Alphabet inventory in January 2018:

There are additionally different, extra basic methods to get knowledge from the online. The performance to extract an HTML desk or record instantly from a web site can, for instance, be helpful with monetary, market, or different publicly obtainable info that you just need to retrieve and work with.

Connecting to the Total Google Workspace

Google Apps Script is a strong device that opens virtually limitless potentialities not solely to increase and automate workflows in Sheets, but additionally to attach it with different components of Google Workspace. This automation device seamlessly connects Sheets, Drive, and BigQuery operations into one workflow. I’ve quite a few examples at work the place now we have used Apps Script to create numerous copies of a template reporting spreadsheet, routinely downloaded completely different monetary info from BigQuery into every of them, after which shared every model with completely different individuals. This ensured that varied groups may see solely their very own delicate knowledge, like prices.

Does Google Sheets Have Any Disadvantages?

I’ve been evangelizing Google Sheets. Nevertheless, not everyone seems to be bought on its advantages but. And I feel that’s due to one in all Sheets’ drawbacks: Lots of its advantages depend upon collaboration with others, and also you’ll discover that uneven adoption in your group will place limits on how briskly you’ll be able to take full benefit of a number of the options.

Additionally, Google Sheets, like several software program, can have its small annoyances, corresponding to a keyboard shortcut or two that aren’t what you’d count on or a function that’s lacking or doesn’t behave the best way you need. In lots of circumstances, although, these annoyances are primarily an issue for customers nonetheless habituated to Excel reasonably than a purposeful weak point of Google Sheets.

One other drawback is that Excel’s success depends on its ecosystem of plugins, lots of which aren’t (but) obtainable for Google Sheets. Which means when you can’t replicate what you want with Google Apps Script, utilizing Sheets means it’s possible you’ll have to toggle between each functions.

Enhanced Collaboration Wins Out

Spreadsheets are one of the vital vital instruments, if not the most vital device, for a lot of finance and enterprise professionals. They’re our canvases, our notepads, and our devices. Over the course of our careers, we spend 1000’s of hours utilizing them. We want our experiences with them to be nice and environment friendly.

I’ve seen enormous productiveness advantages from the collaboration options and different improvements that include utilizing web-based productiveness functions like Google Sheets as in comparison with their conventional desktop counterparts. Cloud-based Microsoft 365 has grow to be extra sturdy lately, however its collaborative performance nonetheless has not fully caught up to right this moment’s calls for.

There are additionally immense productivity-enhancing advantages from studying to make use of these instruments past the elementary stage, as I hope I’ve demonstrated. With tendencies corresponding to elevated distant collaboration and the necessity to analyze ever-larger knowledge units persevering with, discovering the functionalities that be just right for you is essential, and the enterprise case for evaluating Google Sheets retains getting stronger.

This text has lately undergone a complete replace to include the newest and most correct info. Feedback beneath might predate these modifications.

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