As a startup grows and matures so too should the tools and processes used. A simple Google Spreadsheet suffices for company-wide forecasting and budgeting until the business expands to the point that each department needs to do it on a more detailed basis. Here is an example marketing budget Google Spreadsheet template we use that includes the following info:
- Categories for Staff, Lead Generation, and Communications
- Monthly, quarterly, and annual totals
- Budget, actual, difference in dollars, and difference in percentage
This marketing budget Google Spreadsheet template for startups isn’t limited to marketing departments and is readily used for any department. Budgets are an important part of the planning process and collaborative tools like Google Spreadsheets make them easy to develop and use.
Note: To use the spreadsheet for your own purposes, load the View-only version and go to File -> Download as Excel from within the File menu on the page (not in the browser window) and then upload the Excel file into your own new Google Spreadsheet.
What else? What are your thoughts on budgets in startups?
David Cummings on Startups 
Thanks for the post. Have not been using google doc since dropbox comes out, but this template is truly useful.
Cheers
hey david, thanks so much for this cool template…!
just an FYI, the “make a copy” is not available:
http://i.john.do/C7DV
Great stuff. A couple of questions. Who do you recommend for retargeting? I know these are made up numbers, but can one really spend $30k/quarter on SEO? That seems … extraordinary?
AdRoll.com is great for retargeting. We’ve found it to be very powerful.
Yes, those numbers are made up :-).
The link is not available, does any one has a copy?
Here is a working link (a little googling found it) https://drive.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0ArY8_QWVe5oJdFpLLUlqa3pESWY1ZjlPWkFabkJpd0E&mode=public&pli=1#