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Build an innovation dashboard from project spending and milestone exports. Use a dated portfolio example, spreadsheet formulas and reconciliation checks to compare investment progress with plan.
An innovation dashboard compares portfolio spending and milestone completion with the approved plan as of a stated date. Build it from the spending export and the project team's acceptance records, then show cost and delivery side by side. It supports decisions about continuing, changing or stopping investment across projects.
The review should show what evidence each project has delivered for the money spent. Individual product launch readiness needs its own operating checklist; a portfolio spending review cannot replace it.
Ask finance for project-coded expenses and the approved spending plan through the review date. Ask project owners for milestone IDs, planned completion dates and actual acceptance dates. Preserve the original approved dates so schedule changes remain visible.
For the spreadsheet below, the cutoff is the end of September 30, 2026. Spending is cumulative through that date, and the plan is also cumulative through that date. An annual funding authorization is a different comparison and should have a separate column.
Put the combined records on a sheet named Raw. Use one row per milestone, with its spending assigned once. If expenses cannot reasonably be assigned to milestones, summarize expenses by project separately; do not repeat the full project expense on every milestone row. The wider cost controls belong in project cost management.
The fictional US manufacturer has the following portfolio. Columns A through F follow the order shown. All milestone dates below are in 2026; store them as actual spreadsheet dates. A dash means no acceptance date and must be an empty cell in the spreadsheet.
| Project | Milestone | Due date | Accepted date | Planned spending to date (USD) | Actual spending to date (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas | Discovery | September 10 | September 9 | 20,000 | 18,000 |
| Atlas | Validation | September 30 | — | 30,000 | 27,000 |
| Beacon | Discovery | September 5 | September 5 | 15,000 | 16,000 |
| Beacon | Validation | September 20 | September 23 | 25,000 | 28,000 |
| Cedar | Discovery | September 15 | September 14 | 20,000 | 19,000 |
| Cedar | Pilot | October 15 | — | 10,000 | 8,000 |
| Total | 120,000 | 116,000 |
Cedar's pilot is not due yet, but it has planned and actual spending before the review date. Excluding that spending would make the investment review incomplete. Including its future milestone in the overdue count would make the schedule review wrong.
Create a summary sheet with project names in A2:A4. Put the review date in M1:
=DATE(2026,9,30)
Use these Google Sheets formulas in the summary. Columns B and C sum planned and actual spending; D reports actual minus planned spending, and E reports that variance relative to plan. Google's SUMIFS documentation describes summing a range using specified criteria.
B2 =SUMIFS(Raw!$E$2:$E$7,Raw!$A$2:$A$7,$A2)
C2 =SUMIFS(Raw!$F$2:$F$7,Raw!$A$2:$A$7,$A2)
D2 =C2-B2
E2 =IF(B2=0,"",D2/B2)
Next, count milestones due by the cutoff in F. Count those also accepted by the cutoff in G. The nonblank criterion prevents an empty acceptance date from being counted as completed. Google's COUNTIFS documentation describes counting rows that meet multiple criteria.
F2 =COUNTIFS(Raw!$A$2:$A$7,$A2,Raw!$C$2:$C$7,"<="&$M$1)
G2 =COUNTIFS(Raw!$A$2:$A$7,$A2,Raw!$C$2:$C$7,"<="&$M$1,Raw!$D$2:$D$7,"<>",Raw!$D$2:$D$7,"<="&$M$1)
H2 =IF(F2=0,"",G2/F2)
I2 =F2-G2
Copy the formulas through the project rows, and format E and H as percentages. A blank rate means there is no applicable denominator; it does not mean zero performance.
| Project | Plan to date (USD) | Actual to date (USD) | Actual less plan (USD) | Spending variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas | 50,000 | 45,000 | -5,000 | -10.0% |
| Beacon | 40,000 | 44,000 | 4,000 | 10.0% |
| Cedar | 30,000 | 27,000 | -3,000 | -10.0% |
| Portfolio | 120,000 | 116,000 | -4,000 | -3.3% |
| Project | Due milestones | Accepted due milestones | Completion | Overdue milestones |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas | 2 | 1 | 50.0% | 1 |
| Beacon | 2 | 2 | 100.0% | 0 |
| Cedar | 1 | 1 | 100.0% | 0 |
| Portfolio | 5 | 4 | 80.0% | 1 |
The portfolio has spent $4,000 less than plan, but Atlas still has an unaccepted due milestone. Its underspend could reflect delayed work. Beacon has accepted all due milestones but spent $4,000 more than planned; its validation acceptance was also later than its due date. Completion at the cutoff does not prove on-time delivery.
Finance owns the spending reconciliation. Project owners own acceptance evidence. The portfolio sponsor owns the funding decision, including whether the evidence supports further investment. Record the next action alongside each exception instead of letting a favorable total end the discussion.
The spending check is 45,000 + 44,000 + 27,000 = $116,000. The variance check is -5,000 + 4,000 - 3,000 = -$4,000, matching 116,000 - 120,000. Reconcile actual spending to the included ledger accounts and investigate unassigned project codes.
Completion is 4 / 5 = 80.0%. Do not average the project percentages: that would give 83.3%, overweighting Cedar's smaller due-milestone population. All displayed percentages are rounded to one decimal place after calculation.
Spending is not automatically a cash outflow in the same period; use research and development in the cash flow statement for that distinction. A portfolio dashboard also does not prove an investment return; return on research capital addresses a separate financial question.
Bring project expenses, the spending plan through the review date and milestone acceptance records. Covirage maps the columns, and its tools compute and check spending variances and milestone counts; the external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account and bring a sample of your own data.
See project cost control for the supporting business context.
Covirage is not affiliated with Google.
Include spending against the approved plan, milestones due, milestones accepted, overdue work and the next funding decision. Keep each project's owner and review date visible. Financial progress and delivery progress should remain separate because spending a budget does not establish that a project has produced usable evidence.
Divide milestones due by the review date and accepted by that date by all milestones due by the review date. Exclude future milestones from both counts. Record the acceptance date separately from the due date so a late completion cannot silently become an on-time delivery.
An underspend can mean efficient execution, delayed activity or missing invoices. Read it beside milestone acceptance and outstanding commitments. Ask the project owner whether the remaining work still fits the approved scope and timing before treating a lower cost as money available for another project.
A simple completion rate gives every due milestone equal weight, which is transparent but does not measure economic value. If the portfolio needs weighted progress, approve the weights before the review and retain the unweighted counts. Do not change weights simply to improve the reported percentage.