The Debate That Will Not Go Away
Every finance team eventually confronts this question. The company is moving to Google Workspace, or a new CFO comes from a Google Sheets environment, or the team is tired of emailing Excel files back and forth. The question surfaces: can we do our financial modeling in Google Sheets?
The answer is nuanced. Google Sheets has improved dramatically and handles many finance tasks well. But Excel still holds meaningful advantages for complex modeling work. This article provides an objective comparison across the dimensions that matter most to finance professionals, so you can make an informed decision rather than a tribal one.
Performance and Scale
Excel
Excel handles large datasets significantly better than Google Sheets. A workbook with 500,000 rows of transactional data, dozens of SUMIFS formulas, and multiple pivot tables runs reasonably in Excel. The same workbook in Google Sheets will slow to a crawl or hit the cell limit entirely.
Excel supports over 17 million cells per sheet (1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns). For models with long historical periods, detailed cost builds, or granular revenue forecasts, this capacity matters.
Power Query, available only in Excel, handles data transformation and import tasks that would require scripting in Google Sheets. For finance teams that pull data from databases, ERPs, or multiple CSV files, Power Query is a significant productivity advantage.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets has a 10 million cell limit per workbook. For most standard financial models, this is sufficient. A three-statement model with monthly projections over five years will not approach this limit.
Where Google Sheets struggles is with calculation speed. Complex models with thousands of cross-sheet references or array formulas recalculate noticeably slower than equivalent Excel models. If your model takes more than a few seconds to recalculate after changing an input, you have likely outgrown Google Sheets’ performance envelope.
Verdict
Excel wins on performance and scale. If your models are large, data-heavy, or computationally intensive, Excel is the better choice. For smaller models and templates, Google Sheets performs adequately.
Collaboration
Google Sheets
This is where Google Sheets holds its strongest advantage. Real-time collaboration is built into the product. Multiple people can edit the same spreadsheet simultaneously, see each other’s cursors, and leave comments in context. Version history is automatic, with the ability to name specific versions and restore any prior state.
For finance teams that need to collect budget inputs from department heads, review assumptions with business partners, or co-build models with colleagues, this collaborative workflow is genuinely faster than the Excel alternative.
Excel
Excel’s collaboration story has improved with Microsoft 365 and co-authoring in SharePoint or OneDrive. Multiple users can edit simultaneously, and changes sync in near real time. However, the experience is not as seamless as Google Sheets. Conflicts occasionally arise, co-authoring does not work with all Excel features (notably pivot tables and Power Query), and some users still default to downloading local copies.
For sensitive models like executive compensation plans, M&A analyses, or board-level forecasts, Excel’s file-based approach actually offers better access control. You can restrict who has the file, encrypt it with a password, and avoid the risk of someone stumbling onto a shared link.
Verdict
Google Sheets wins for collaborative workflows like budget collection and assumption review. Excel wins for sensitive, controlled-access models where collaboration is limited to a small group.
Formula Capabilities
Excel
Excel’s formula library is more extensive, and recent additions like XLOOKUP, LET, LAMBDA, and dynamic arrays (FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE, SEQUENCE) have widened the gap. These functions simplify complex financial calculations and reduce the need for helper columns.
VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) provides macro and automation capabilities that have no direct equivalent in Google Sheets. For models that require automated formatting, custom dialog boxes, or complex iterative calculations, VBA remains essential.
Power Pivot and the DAX formula language allow Excel to function as a lightweight BI tool, handling data modeling and calculations across millions of rows that would overwhelm the standard grid.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets has some unique formula advantages. QUERY, which uses a SQL-like syntax to filter and aggregate data within a sheet, is arguably more intuitive than Excel’s equivalent approaches. IMPORTRANGE allows you to pull data from other Google Sheets workbooks with a simple formula, enabling distributed model architectures.
Google Apps Script replaces VBA with JavaScript-based automation. For teams with web development experience, Apps Script can feel more modern. However, the finance community has decades of VBA templates, libraries, and knowledge that do not exist for Apps Script.
Google Sheets also adopted XLOOKUP, LAMBDA, and named functions, narrowing the formula gap. But Power Query, Power Pivot, and the full dynamic array ecosystem remain Excel-only.
Verdict
Excel has a broader and more powerful formula set, especially for advanced financial modeling. Google Sheets covers the fundamentals well and offers some unique features, but falls short on the advanced capabilities that complex models demand.
Data Connectivity
Excel
Power Query connects to virtually every data source a finance team encounters: SQL databases, REST APIs, SharePoint lists, Azure data services, text files, web pages, and dozens of other connectors. Queries are repeatable, refreshable, and can be chained together for complex transformation workflows.
For finance teams pulling data from ERPs, data warehouses, or financial planning tools, Power Query often eliminates the manual export-import cycle entirely.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets offers native connectors for BigQuery and some Google products. IMPORTDATA and IMPORTHTML can pull CSV files and web tables. For everything else, you need Google Apps Script or third-party add-ons like Supermetrics or Coupler.
The connected sheets feature for BigQuery is powerful for organizations already invested in Google Cloud, but it is irrelevant for teams whose data lives in SQL Server, Oracle, or on-premises systems.
Verdict
Excel wins decisively on data connectivity. Power Query is one of the most underappreciated tools in finance, and it has no Google Sheets equivalent.
Cost and Accessibility
Google Sheets
Google Sheets is free for personal use and included with Google Workspace business subscriptions. It runs in a browser, requires no installation, and works on any device with internet access. There is no compatibility issue between versions because everyone accesses the same live document.
Excel
Excel requires a Microsoft 365 subscription or a standalone license. The desktop application is necessary for advanced features; the web version lacks Power Query, Power Pivot, VBA, and full formatting capabilities. Licensing costs are moderate but add up for large teams.
On the other hand, most enterprises already have Microsoft 365 licenses, so the incremental cost of using Excel for financial modeling is often zero.
Verdict
Google Sheets wins on accessibility and simplicity. Excel’s cost is usually absorbed by existing enterprise licenses, but Google Sheets’ browser-based access is genuinely more convenient for distributed teams.
Security and Compliance
Excel
File-based models can be encrypted, password-protected, and stored on controlled network shares. For regulated industries or sensitive analyses like M&A models, this level of control matters. IT departments generally have mature policies and tools for managing Excel files.
Google Sheets
Google Workspace offers enterprise-grade security, including audit logs, data loss prevention, and granular sharing controls. However, the default sharing model is link-based, and it is easy for someone to accidentally broaden access. Finance teams need to be disciplined about sharing settings.
Verdict
Both platforms offer adequate security when configured correctly. Excel’s file-based model offers more intuitive control for sensitive one-off analyses. Google Sheets’ cloud-based model works well with proper governance policies.
Practical Recommendations
Use Google Sheets For
- Budget templates distributed to department heads for input collection
- Lightweight operational models with fewer than 50,000 cells
- Dashboards that need to be viewed by a broad audience
- Models where real-time collaboration is more important than analytical depth
- Quick ad-hoc analyses that do not require advanced formulas
Use Excel For
- Three-statement financial models and DCF valuations
- Models that pull from SQL databases or ERPs via Power Query
- Large datasets requiring pivot tables or Power Pivot
- Models with VBA automation or complex macros
- Sensitive analyses requiring file-level access control
- Any model exceeding 100,000 cells or requiring sub-second recalculation
The Hybrid Approach
Many finance teams use both tools effectively. Budget inputs are collected in Google Sheets, then pulled into an Excel model via CSV export or API integration. Dashboards for broad consumption live in Google Sheets, while the detailed models behind them live in Excel.
The key is choosing the right tool for each job rather than forcing one tool to handle everything. Neither platform is universally superior. The best choice depends on the specific task, the team’s technical capabilities, and the organization’s technology ecosystem.