Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet application for organizing information, making calculations and working with others. In this hands-on beginner lesson, you will create a small expense tracker, calculate three useful summaries and learn how to keep your data readable. You can follow along in a blank Google Sheet; no prior spreadsheet experience is needed.
What you will learn
By the end, you will be able to create and rename a spreadsheet, identify rows and columns, enter a clean data table, format a currency column, freeze a header, use a filter, write SUM/AVERAGE/COUNT formulas and share a file with an appropriate permission. Allow approximately 15–20 minutes.
1. Create and name a new spreadsheet
Open sheets.google.com while signed in to your Google account. Choose Blank (or the plus button), then click the title at the top left and rename the file “My First Expense Tracker”. Google Sheets saves edits automatically. A spreadsheet file can contain several tabs; the active tab in our real test workbook is named “Beginner Practice”.
You will see column letters A, B, C and so on, row numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on, and a grid of cells. A cell address combines the column and row: C2 means column C, row 2. A range such as C2:C6 means all cells from C2 through C6. Use the name box near the formula bar to jump to a specific cell.
Practice in your own copy
Make your own Google Sheets copy with the same data, formulas, formatting, filter and frozen header. The original remains unchanged.
Sign in to Google. If the original is not publicly shared, download the full workbook and import it into Google Sheets, or paste the example data into your own sheet.
2. Enter the sample data
In row 1, type these four headers: A1 = Item, B1 = Category, C1 = Cost (USD), D1 = Status. Enter the five example rows exactly as follows. These are illustrative expenses, not your real financial records.
Row 2: Lunch | Food | 12 | Paid. Row 3: Notebook | Supplies | 8 | Paid. Row 4: Bus fare | Travel | 5 | Paid. Row 5: Coffee | Food | 4 | Paid. Row 6: Groceries | Food | 26 | Paid. Type 12, 8, 5, 4 and 26 as numbers, without dollar signs in the input cells.
3. Make the table readable
Select A1:D1 and apply bold text or a light header fill. Select C2:C6 and use Format → Number → Currency (or the currency button). The sample test workbook was explicitly set to the United States locale so the values display as $12.00, $8.00, $5.00, $4.00 and $26.00. In another locale, the symbol and decimal separator may look different without changing the underlying numbers.
To keep headings visible while scrolling, choose View → Freeze → 1 row. To add filter controls, select A1:D6 and choose Data → Create a filter. Filter icons appear in the headers; use the Category filter to inspect just Food if you like, and clear it to return to all five rows. A filter hides nonmatching rows; it does not delete them.
4. Add your first formula: total expenses
Move to F1 and enter Metric; enter Result in G1. Put Total in F2. Click G2, type the formula below and press Enter. The equals sign tells Sheets to calculate rather than store ordinary text.
=SUM(C2:C6)The live workbook returned 55 because 12 + 8 + 5 + 4 + 26 = 55. Notice that the formula bar shows the exact expression when G2 is selected while the cell displays its calculated result.
5. Calculate the average and the number of entries
Put Average in F3 and use the following formula in G3. It returns 11 for the original five values.
=AVERAGE(C2:C6)Put Entries in F4. Use COUNT in G4 to count numeric cells in C2:C6; its verified result is 5. COUNT is not a count of every nonempty text cell; for text-inclusive counts, learn COUNTA later.
=COUNT(C2:C6)6. Verify that a spreadsheet recalculates
As an actual test, we changed C2 from 12 to 15. Google Sheets recalculated G2 from 55 to 58 and G3 from 11 to 11.6, while G4 stayed at 5. We then restored C2 to 12; the final workbook again shows 55, 11 and 5. This is why a formula is preferable to typing a fixed total manually.
7. Share without giving away edit access
Click Share in the upper-right corner. Enter a collaborator’s email address and choose Viewer, Commenter or Editor based on what that person actually needs. Viewer is sufficient for reading a reference spreadsheet; Editor permits changes. Before distributing a link publicly, review “General access” and avoid accidentally exposing a working document. Menu labels may be localized to your Google account language.
8. Common beginner mistakes
A formula appears as text
Check that it begins with = and that the destination cell is not formatted as Plain text. A leading apostrophe also makes an expression literal text. Re-enter the formula in a normal cell.
A number is treated as text
Enter numeric amounts without currency symbols or extra spaces, then apply number formatting separately. Regional settings affect the way decimals and currency are displayed.
The total is unexpectedly high or low
Check the range C2:C6 and the data in each row. Do not include the summary result cell G2 in its own SUM range, which would introduce a circular reference.
A row seems to have vanished
Inspect the header filter icon: a filter may be hiding a row. Clear the filter rather than deleting the underlying data.
Practice exercise
Create your own copy of the five-row example. Replace Coffee (C5 = 4) with an amount of 9. Predict the total before checking G2: it should change from 55 to 60; the average should become 12 while the numeric-entry count stays at 5. Restore the values when you are done. Try changing one Category value and filtering that category.
Key takeaways
- ✓A cell address is its column letter plus row number; C2:C6 selects five cells.
- ✓Keep one header row and enter numeric values as numbers before formatting them.
- ✓Freeze row 1 and use a filter to inspect data without deleting rows.
- ✓SUM returns 55; AVERAGE returns 11; COUNT finds five numeric entries.
- ✓A change to C2 automatically updates the formulas; make your own copy to practice safely.
Check your understanding
Answer four questions about the practice sheet.
What to learn next
Once you can read cell addresses and use these three formulas, continue with absolute versus relative references, IF, SUMIF, FILTER and charts. This lesson belongs to the Foundations learning path, beginner level.