Minutes to insights: Google’s finance transformation with Connected Sheets and BigQuery

As a finance leader with experience spanning revenue management, P&L ownership, and deal desk management, I’ve seen the industry evolve tremendously over the years. But one thing hasn't changed: the constant push to deliver faster, deeper insights. In the last year, as Head of Product Finance for our Google Workspace business, my team began using Connected Sheets to connect to and analyze our financial data stored in BigQuery. Using Connected Sheets has fundamentally shifted how our team approaches analysis of financial data — analysis that used to take us hours now takes mere minutes.

Here’s how the Connected Sheets and BigQuery integration is helping my finance team be more productive:

1. Gain back valuable time and ditch the data drudgery

For years our analysts’ days consisted of finessing complex SQL queries, wrestling with version control, and managing stale exports. Analysts often spent the majority of their time wrangling data and less on actually analyzing it, missing out on critical insights for the business. Many important questions would simply go unanswered because the team was too overloaded with manual tasks, and didn’t have enough time to focus on deriving insights.

Now, with Connected Sheets, we’re able to create, share, and iterate on analysis in a quarter of the time it used to take us.

2. Manage and analyze billions of rows, no SQL required

The Connected Sheets and BigQuery integration allows us to access and analyze billions of rows of data directly from the Google Sheets interface we already know and love — without writing a single line of SQL code.

Instantly, we now have a live connection to our massive data warehouse. Anyone on our team can pull a trend analysis across 20+ different dimensions, and when we need to pivot the view, we don't need to rely on a data engineer or sink time into writing a complex query. We can adjust our pivot table or chart in Sheets, and BigQuery does the heavy lifting in the background, allowing us to focus on insights instead of queries. Plus, with Connected Sheets we can run a cut on billions of transaction lines in seconds, not hours, allowing for real-time decision-making during critical negotiations or deal desk reviews.

3. Collaborate easily knowing our data is guarded with enterprise-grade security

Before using Connected Sheets, every time an analyst pulled and emailed a file, we risked version control issues and compromised our security posture. Connected Sheets eliminates this vulnerability by maintaining a single source of truth in the cloud. The solution upholds the security and governance architecture already built into BigQuery and Google Workspace. The raw data remains securely in BigQuery, and users only ever see what they are authorized to see, eliminating the need for risky, local downloads.

4. Unlock advanced analytics and forecasting using BigQuery ML and TimesFM

Predicting the future just got a whole lot simpler. Connected Sheets now integrates BigQuery ML and Google’s TimesFM model to provide fast, professional-grade forecasting. You no longer need to be a data scientist to run sophisticated predictive analytics — skip the complex setup and training pipelines usually required for machine learning. Whether you're tracking sales or demand, you can now generate insights immediately — no SQL, no Python, and no complex model training required. It’s the power of a billion-point foundation model, right in your spreadsheet!

5. Transform our team into a growth engine

We can now sit in a meeting with our business leaders and answer their "what-if" questions in real time. We can identify underperforming business areas or immediately spot a breakout product trend. This agility empowers the entire organization to act faster and with more confidence. It’s not just about saving time; it’s about giving the business the financial intelligence it needs to win in the marketplace.

When we reduce the time to insight from hours to minutes, we stop being scorekeepers and start being growth partners.

Learn more about how your organization can start using Connected Sheets today.