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Introducing the New Simple Business Google Spreadsheet for Freelancers and Small Business Owners

Introducing the new Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet, bringing Tiller’s award-winning financial feed automation in Google Sheets to the eight million freelancers and small business owners who say they prefer to manage business finances in a spreadsheet.

Introducing the new Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet, bringing Tiller’s award-winning financial feed automation for Google Sheets to the 8 million freelancers and small business owners who say they prefer to manage their business finances in a spreadsheet.

From one-person freelance gigs to small design studios to multi-billion corporations, spreadsheets are the universal operating system for modern business.

“Every business of every size uses spreadsheets,” said Peter Polson, Tiller Founder, and CEO. “We designed Tiller Simple Business to make spreadsheets even easier. With automated feeds from all of your bank and credit card accounts, P&L reports, and reconciliation workflows, Tiller Simple Business gives freelancers and small business owners the tools needed to stay in control. “

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Automated Bookkeeping Tools, A Powerful Business Finance Dashboard, and Secure Account Consolidation – All in a Google Spreadsheet

Tiller Simple Business makes finance spreadsheets 10x faster by automating essential bookkeeping tasks, eliminating repetitive data entry, and consolidating all accounts in one place.

It’s built around a powerful Business Dashboard that visualizes key financial data such as income vs expense trends.

And because Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet is based on Google’s secure cloud architecture,  real-time collaboration with partners and outside consultants such as tax preparers and accountants has never been easier.

Key benefits include:

  • Automatic daily feed of transactions and balances from over 16,000 banks, credit card companies, brokerages, and loan accounts directly into Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet.
  • Effortless Profit and Loss Reports – Print or save as PDF with clean formatting.
  • Cash Flow & Automated Account Balances with business-friendly income & expense categories.
  • Easy, secure collaboration with others, including bookkeepers, tax preparers, and accountants.
  • Automated income and expense tracking with the AutoCat add-on.
  • Starter business expense and income categories.
  • Balances at a glance, including uncleared transactions for all your accounts.
  • Category Reports to easily generate line item reports. Drill down into details for selected time periods by category.
  • Auto Reconciliation Trigger, to automatically update your ledger with cleared transactions from all linked accounts.
  • Statements, so you can easily reconcile bank statements to keep your books balanced.
  • Ultra-Customizable, so you can run your business your way, with custom business branding in the Dashboard and across company reports. Easily Create (and delete) custom income and expense categories.
  • Visualize key financial data in the Business Dashboard:
    • Every linked account balance
    • Inflow vs Outflow Chart
    • Income vs Expense Chart
    • Category focus for a detailed view.
    • Expense By Category Group Chart.
    • Income By Category Group Chart

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Why Tiller Built a Spreadsheet Optimized for Freelancers and Small Business Owners

Studies show that an increasing number of people are taking control of their financial future through freelancing and small business ownership:

  • According to the IRS, in 2016 there were 24.8 million single-person businesses with collective receipts of $1.17 trillion.
  • About 70% of the entire US small business market is made up of single-person businesses.
  • The number of single-person businesses that generate over $1 million is rising.
  • Meanwhile, a report by Upwork / Freelancers Union finds there are 57.7 million freelancers of diverse types working in the US today.

Multiple surveys find that freelancers and the self-employed are highly satisfied with their work. But they also face several unique challenges. Through research and customer interviews, Tiller found that:

  • Income predictability cash flow issues are key stressors for business owners.
  • Likewise, time management is a problem, as most freelancers and small business owners are personally responsible for several areas of business operations, such as customer service, marketing, sales, finance, product development, and IT.

As a Thriving Startup, These Issues are Familiar to the Tiller Team

With a mission of making spreadsheets faster, easier, and more accessible for everyone, Tiller naturally runs much of our business on Google Sheets.

“Tiller’s roots are in personal finance,” said Tiller CEO Peter Polson. “But for some time we’ve watched customers achieve the same control and success with Tiller spreadsheets in their business as they do with their personal finances.”

In 2017, we started to see that some of our customers also ran their businesses on Tiller-powered Google Sheets. And new customers were increasingly asking about workflows to support their business bookkeeping and accounting needs.

The Tiller team decided to investigate how we might build a dedicated, Google Sheets-based finance solution for small business owners.

First, we recruited a panel of customers who already used Tiller spreadsheet templates to run their freelance and small businesses. Next, we launched several surveys to understand why business owners who prefer spreadsheets love them – and how we might make them even better.

Amoung other findings, we learned:

  • 38% of all single-person business owners prefer spreadsheets as their primary tool for managing business finances vs software like Quickbooks or Xero.
  • People who use spreadsheets to run their business were happiest with their control, flexibility, simplicity, and speed.
  • But they also wished spreadsheets were easier to use.
  • Additionally, business owners who prefer to run their business in a spreadsheet overwhelmingly wanted a tool that was uncomplicated, automated, flexible, easy to use, and aggregated all their business account data into one place.

With this information, we got to work.

Early in our development process, we invited a group of customers to start using a rough beta of what would become Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet. Based on real-world usage and feedback, our early rough draft was refined and improved over many generations.

It’s now available for everyone. Sign up for a free trial or log in and try it today.

“Small businesses are the workhorse of our economy,” said Polson. “Whether you are a contractor, freelancer, service provider, or entrepreneur, if you’re in business we couldn’t be more excited to serve you with this new offering.”

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Priced for Modern Small Businesses

Tiller Simple Business Spreadsheet is priced at $79 per year, significantly less than Xero ($108 – $840 per year), Quickbooks ($120 – $360 per year), or Freshbooks ($180 – $600 per year).

You can try Tiller free for 30 days, with simple, no-hassle cancelation.

The Tiller Difference

Tiller is the only service that automatically feeds daily transactions and balances from over 16,000 banks, credit card companies, loans, brokerages and other sources directly into Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel.

By eliminating manual data entry, multiple account logins, and the need to download CSV files, Tiller makes spreadsheets easier, more accurate, and 10x faster so you can focus on the financial tasks most important to you.

Tiller is headquartered in Seattle and supported by a remote team working from New England, North Carolina, and Washington state.

Edward Shepard

Edward Shepard

Marketing Lead at Tiller. Writer. Spreadsheet nerd. Get in touch with partnership ideas at edward @ tillerhq.com.

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