I'm running 3 small businesses and honestly feeling overwhelmed with the financial tracking situation. Right now I'm using a patchwork of Google Sheets and trying to pull everything into Google Data Studio for dashboards.My current setup:Each business has its own Google Sheet (sometimes multiple sheets per business)My bookkeeper updates them daily, but keeps accidentally breaking the sheets by adding/deleting columnsI spend way too much time each month fixing broken dashboards and trying to get a clear picture of how each business is performingAll I really want to see is: income, expenses, profit, and cash balance for each business, plus some simple trendsThe biggest frustration? I can never get a quick "portfolio view" of all my businesses together. I'm constantly switching between different sheets, trying to manually add up numbers, and honestly sometimes I'm flying blind on which business needs attention.What are you all using? Are you just dealing with the same spreadsheet chaos, or have you found something that actually works well for multiple businesses without breaking the bank?Really curious what's working (or not working) for others in the same boat.

Question

How do you currently track financial performance across your multiple businesses?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
August 27, 2025
1 reply
12 views

I'm running 3 small businesses and honestly feeling overwhelmed with the financial tracking situation. Right now I'm using a patchwork of Google Sheets and trying to pull everything into Google Data Studio for dashboards.

My current setup:

Each business has its own Google Sheet (sometimes multiple sheets per business)
My bookkeeper updates them daily, but keeps accidentally breaking the sheets by adding/deleting columns
I spend way too much time each month fixing broken dashboards and trying to get a clear picture of how each business is performing
All I really want to see is: income, expenses, profit, and cash balance for each business, plus some simple trends

The biggest frustration? I can never get a quick "portfolio view" of all my businesses together. I'm constantly switching between different sheets, trying to manually add up numbers, and honestly sometimes I'm flying blind on which business needs attention.

What are you all using? Are you just dealing with the same spreadsheet chaos, or have you found something that actually works well for multiple businesses without breaking the bank?

Really curious what's working (or not working) for others in the same boat.

QuickBooks Accountant Online

Rainflurry

Level 11

@harris54321

Spreadsheets as an accounting system? No way. I had 2 separate businesses that I recently sold. Each had their own QB file in QB Desktop. You absolutely need to spend the money to have a separate accounting system for each business. You need to be able to see a P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement every month for each business, regardless of which accounting system you decide to use. Any money you think you're saving by using free software like Google Sheets/Docs, etc., is far outweighed by the lack of insight into the businesses and the extra work that a bookkeeper needs to do to enter that info in Google Sheets. Not to mention you spending your time "fixing broken dashboards and trying to get a clear picture of how each business is performing"

How are you tracking receivables and payables? Do you handwrite checks?

Depending on how you pay your bookkeeper, you will likely save enough in payroll costs to justify having QB (or whatever software you decide to use), just with how much more efficient it is to enter sales, receivables, payables, inventory (if applicable), etc.

Sign up

Login with SSO

Let's get you signed in

Login with SSO