Building a budget planner from scratch takes time. You set up the columns, figure out which formulas to use, format it so it's readable, double-check the calculations, and then realize you forgot a category.
We wanted to see how Companion handled it. One prompt:
Make me a spreadsheet budget planner with nice visuals and Google Sheets on my Google Drive. Include all formulas, then give me the shareable link.
Here's what happened.
What Companion created
In under a minute, Companion:
- Connected to Google Drive via the Google Drive MCP
- Created a new Google Sheets file in your Drive
- Built the budget planner with:
- Category column (Housing, Food, Transport, Entertainment, etc.)
- Budgeted amount column
- Actual amount column
- Difference column with automatic calculation formulas
- Formatted headers and clean visual layout
- Generated a shareable link and returned it in the chat
We opened the link. The spreadsheet was complete. Every formula worked — the difference column auto-calculated, the totals were correct, the formatting was clean. Professional-grade, ready to use.
The formulas work
This is worth saying explicitly: Companion didn't just create the structure and leave you to add formulas yourself. It wrote real spreadsheet formulas for every calculated field.
We verified each one. The difference column used =B2-C2 applied consistently down the rows. Total rows used =SUM() with correct ranges. Nothing was hardcoded. Nothing was missing.
From request to fully functional budget planner: under a minute.
How this works
Companion uses Google Drive MCP — a connection that gives it the ability to create, read, and edit files in your Google Drive. Once installed, Companion can work with Docs, Sheets, and Drive storage the way any Google Workspace tool can.
The prompt told it what to make. The MCP gave it the ability to make it.
This is different from asking an AI to "help you build" a spreadsheet — where you'd get instructions or a template you'd have to set up yourself. With MCP, Companion builds the actual file and delivers it to you.
What else you can create this way
The same approach works for any structured document or spreadsheet:
Project trackers — "Create a project tracker in Google Sheets with task name, owner, status, due date, and completion percentage"
Invoice templates — "Make a client invoice template in Google Docs with our company name, line items, and auto-calculated totals"
Content calendars — "Build a content calendar in Google Sheets for May and June with columns for platform, topic, publish date, and status"
Meeting notes — "Create a Google Doc meeting notes template with agenda, attendees, decisions, and action items"
Each of these follows the same pattern: describe what you want, Companion builds it in the right app and hands you a link.
Combining Sheets with other tools
Where this gets genuinely powerful is when you stack integrations.
Once the budget planner exists in Google Drive, you can:
- Share it automatically: "Share this spreadsheet with [email] with edit access"
- Update it from other data: "Pull last month's expenses from Zoho and fill in the actual amounts"
- Send it via email: "Email this spreadsheet link to [recipient] with a short summary"
- Schedule a review: "Set up a monthly calendar reminder to review this budget"
One prompt created the spreadsheet. The next prompts put it to work.
The time math
Building a spreadsheet like this manually takes 20–45 minutes if you know what you're doing. If you're figuring out formulas as you go, longer.
Companion did it in under a minute.
The value isn't just the time. It's that you skip the tedious part entirely and start working with a finished tool immediately.
Download Companion and install Google Drive MCP to try it yourself. The setup takes about 5 minutes, and then this kind of workflow is one prompt away.