Create new spreadsheet

Create a new spreadsheet to track campaign budget and share it with finance. Create a spreadsheet named Q3 Campaign Budget in Finance/Budgets, add the budget categories and a row for each campaign, give Sarah in finance edit access and the marketing leads view access, and lock the header row and the totals formula cells so only Sarah can change them.

Before I hand the budget sheet to finance, make it easy to validate totals and spot risks. Move the projected savings and remaining budget to the top, color any categories where spending is above 80 percent, add a simple checksum so a reviewer can confirm formulas weren’t changed, and call out any assumptions that affect totals.

I opened the Q3 Campaign Budget and noticed totals now show a deficit; I suspect someone accidentally edited the totals row. The finance lead Sarah will review this afternoon and I can’t explain the variance. I don’t know who changed it or whether formulas were overwritten. What is the most likely cause and the fastest way to restore accurate totals before the review?

Every budget cycle I spend days fixing spreadsheets because teammates overwrite formulas or copy old versions, then blame me for errors. It undermines trust with finance. What concrete habit, sheet setup, or permission change will stop recurring manual fixes and keep the budget accurate across collaborators?