7 Google Sheets Formulas Every Small Business Owner Should Know

Google Sheets can do incredibly complex things. But for most small business tasks: tracking expenses, managing invoices, analyzing spending. You only need a handful of formulas. These seven cover about 90% of what you'll need.

The Formulas

1. SUM and SUMIF

SUM adds up a range: =SUM(D2:D100) gives you the total of column D. SUMIF adds numbers that meet a condition: =SUMIF(C2:C100, "Office Supplies", D2:D100) sums only the amounts where the category is "Office Supplies." Incredibly useful with extracted expense data.

2. COUNTIF

=COUNTIF(B2:B100, "Acme Corp") counts how many times "Acme Corp" appears. See how many invoices you've received from each vendor, how many expenses fall in each category, or how many transactions happened in a given month.

3. VLOOKUP

=VLOOKUP("INV-001", A:D, 4, FALSE) looks up "INV-001" in the first column and returns the value from the 4th column of that row. Perfect for finding specific invoice totals or vendor details.

4. IF

=IF(D2>1000, "Review", "OK") adds conditional logic. Flag invoices over a threshold, mark overdue payments, or categorize expenses based on amount.

5. TEXT and DATE Formulas

=TEXT(A2, "MMMM YYYY") formats a date as "February 2026." =MONTH(A2) extracts just the month number. Essential for grouping extracted data by time period: monthly totals, quarterly summaries, year-over-year comparisons.

6. UNIQUE and SORT

=UNIQUE(B2:B100) gives you a list of all unique values in column B: all your vendors or expense categories. Combine with SORT to alphabetize: =SORT(UNIQUE(B2:B100)).

7. FILTER

=FILTER(A2:D100, C2:C100="Travel") returns only rows where category equals "Travel." A dynamic, formula-based filter that updates automatically as you add data.

Putting It Together

When you extract document data into Google Sheets with Siftly, these formulas let you instantly analyze the data. Master these seven and you'll handle virtually any small business spreadsheet task with confidence.