How to Create a Report in Google Sheets

A spreadsheet filled with rows of raw data isn't a report - it's a starting point. The real value comes from transforming that data into clear, understandable insights that you and your team can actually use. This guide will walk you through exactly how to build a dynamic, visual report right within Google Sheets, turning that wall of numbers into a helpful, interactive dashboard.

First Things First: Prepare Your Data for Reporting

Before you can build anything, you need a solid foundation. The most common reason a report fails is messy, inconsistent data. This step, often called data cleaning, is the most important part of the entire process.

The "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Rule

Your charts and summaries will only be as good as the data you feed them. If you have typos in your product categories, sales figures with dollar signs mixed with plain numbers, or random blank rows, your report will be inaccurate and misleading. Taking five minutes to clean your data will save you hours of frustration later.

Key Data Cleaning Steps:

Ensure Consistent Formatting: Dates should all be in the same format (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY). Numbers should be formatted as numbers or currency, not plain text. Text fields (like 'Region' or 'Product Category') should have consistent spelling and capitalization - "USA" and "U.S.A" will be treated as two different places.
Get Rid of Blank Rows and Columns: Delete any completely empty rows or columns within your data set. They can confuse Google Sheets when it tries to determine your data range.
Handle Missing Values: Decide what to do with cells that are empty. Should they be zero? Or should the row be excluded? For most business reports, leaving a numerical value blank is fine, as functions like SUM and AVERAGE will simply ignore them.
Remove Duplicates: If your sheet tracks unique orders or customers, use the built-in tool to remove any duplicate entries. Just select your data, go to Data > Data cleanup > Remove duplicates.

Summarize Your Key Information with Pivot Tables

A pivot table is the single most powerful reporting tool in Google Sheets. It lets you take hundreds or even thousands of rows of data and quickly aggregate them into a summarized table, without using any complex formulas.

Let's imagine you have sales data with columns for Order Date, Product, Region, and Sale Amount. A simple pivot table can instantly tell you the total sales amount for each region.

Creating Your First Pivot Table

Select all the data you want to include in your report. A quick way to do this is to click on any cell within your data and press Ctrl + A (or Cmd + A on a Mac).
In the top menu, navigate to Insert > Pivot table.
A new sheet will be created. On the right side, you'll see the Pivot table editor. This is where you tell Sheets how to organize your data.
In the editor, you'll see four main sections: Rows, Columns, Values, and Filters.
- Rows: This is how you want to group your data vertically. Click 'Add' and select 'Region'.
- Values: This is the number you want to calculate. Click 'Add' and select 'Sale Amount'. By default, it will be summarized by 'SUM', which is exactly what we want.

Instantly, you'll see a clean table showing each unique region and its corresponding total sales. You've just condensed your entire data set into a simple summary without writing a single formula.

Visualize Your Insights with Charts

Numbers in a table are great, but visuals are better for spotting trends and patterns at a glance. Google Sheets makes it easy to create charts directly from your pivot table data.

Building a Chart from a Pivot Table

Click on any cell inside your newly created pivot table to select it.
Go to Insert > Chart. Google Sheets is smart enough to analyze the data and suggest a suitable chart type. In our example of sales by region, it will likely recommend a bar chart or a pie chart.
Use the Chart editor on the right to customize your chart. Under the 'Setup' tab, you can change the chart type. Under the 'Customize' tab, you can add chart titles, change colors, and format your labels to make it clear and professional.

Which Chart Should You Use? A Quick Guide

Bar/Column Chart: The best choice for comparing values across different categories. Example: Total sales revenue by marketing channel.
Line Chart: Perfect for showing a trend over time. Your horizontal axis must be a time-based dimension like date, month, or year. Example: Website traffic per day over the last month.
Pie Chart: Use this to show the composition of a whole, or what percentage each part makes up. It works best with five or fewer categories. Example: Percentage of sales from each product category.
Scorecard Chart: This isn't for comparison, it's for highlighting a single, important number (a KPI). Example: A large card displaying "Total Revenue This Quarter."

Add Key Metrics and Formulas for an "At-a-Glance" View

A good report presents the most important numbers right at the top. This "KPI Snapshot" section gives viewers the main takeaways without having to dig through charts and tables.

Using Simple Formulas for Your Snapshot

On a new 'Dashboard' tab or at the top of your report tab, dedicate a few cells to display your core metrics. You'll use simple functions that reference your raw data tab.

Let's say your raw sales data is on a sheet named 'Sales Data' and the sale amounts are in column D.

Total Sales: Use the SUM function. In a cell, type:
Average Sale Value: Use the AVERAGE function. In another cell, type:
Number of Orders: Use COUNTA to count all the non-empty cells in a column, like your order ID column (let's say it's column A).

(The "- 1" is to subtract the header row so it isn't counted as an order.)

Now you have clean, clear numbers that provide an immediate summary of performance.

Putting It All Together on an Interactive Dashboard

The final step is to arrange all your elements - your charts, pivot tables, and KPI snapshots - onto a single sheet that serves as your report 'dashboard'.

You can simply copy your finalized charts (Ctrl + C) and paste them (Ctrl + V) onto a designated dashboard sheet. Arrange them in a way that tells a logical story, with high-level summaries at the top and more detailed breakdowns below.

Make Your Report Interactive with Slicers

A slicer is a filter that controls multiple charts and pivot tables at once. This lets anyone viewing the report drill down into the data without needing to know how to edit a pivot table.

How to Add a Slicer:

Go to your dashboard tab where your charts and tables are.
From the top menu, select Data > Add a slicer.
A slicer object will appear. In the editor on the right, under 'Column', choose the field you want to filter by, such as 'Region' or 'Product'.
That's it! Now you can click the slicer and select just "USA" to see all your charts and tables instantly update to show data only for that region. It turns a static report into a flexible analysis tool.

Final Thoughts

Building a report in Google Sheets comes down to following a clear process: prepare your data, summarize it with pivot tables, visualize it with charts, and organize it all on a dashboard. By mastering these core components, you can transform any static spreadsheet into a source of valuable business insights.

While Google Sheets is an incredible tool, we know this manual process gets tedious, especially when you're pulling data from platforms like Shopify, Google Analytics, or Facebook Ads every week. We built Graphed to do all this heavy lifting for you. Just connect your data sources once, and then use simple, plain English to ask for the report you need. We'll instantly generate a real-time dashboard, so you can spend less time wrangling spreadsheets and more time acting on your data.