Using The Finbox Google Sheets Add-on

Our Google Spreadsheets Add-on enables easy access to your favorite data points from finbox.com like fair value targets, public company stock quotes, historical financials, valuation, and fundamental ratios, forecasts, and more.

Using a simple function  = FNBX( ) you can incorporate our data into your spreadsheets.

Installation

1. Install the free Finbox Google Sheets Add-on from the GSuite Marketplace.

2. Click the highlighted link to  create a copy of this demo workbook which contains examples using the formula.

3. In the top toolbar on Google Sheets, click the Add-ons menu and then Get Started.

Activation

If you've installed the Finbox Google Sheets Add-on, you can use the add-on in any Google spreadsheet by enabling it from the Add-ons menu. (Add-ons > Manage add-ons)

Using the = FNBX( ) function

Once you've installed and enabled the add-on, you can construct a formula by typing = FNBX( ) into any cell. The formula accepts inputs in the order described below.

Ticker

Finbox supports thousands of companies listed on exchanges all over the world. If you need data for a company we don't currently support, send us a note at support@finbox.com and we'll do our best to accommodate you.

You can also search for a ticker right from the Finbox sidebar in Google Sheets. (Add-ons > Finbox > Search Supported Functions)

Metric Slug

Finbox aggregates and computes hundreds of metrics for each of the companies we support. Timeseries metrics like the stock price may contain over 10 years of historical data.

You can search for the metric_slug associated with a metric in one of three ways:

1) using the Data Explorer, or

2) using the metrics listing spreadsheet, or

3) using the search utility in Google Sheets. (Add-ons > Finbox > Search Supported Functions)

Period

To make it easy for our own team to work with this data, we developed a unique key-value query language we call FinQL. To standardize access to timeseries data that may have different reporting intervals, some metrics include a list of supported "periods". Periods allow you to select the reporting interval and calendar range of data you'd like to retrieve.

For example, revenue is reported on a quarterly and annual basis, as determined by a company's fiscal calendar. The last 10 years of annual revenue figures is represented by the periods FY-9 to FY. Similarly, the last 8 quarters of reported quarterly revenue is represented by periods FQ-7 to FQ.

A metric like stock price ( asset_price_close_adj) has data available with a daily frequency. To retrieve the last 30 days of close prices for a company, you can request data from periods D-30 to D. You can also simply provide a date ("2020-03-31") or reference a date that is in another cell as the third parameter. Note, providing a period is optional as the function will default to the latest period.

You can search for the period types supported for a metric in one of three ways:

1) using the Data Explorer, or

2) using the period types listed in Column F in the metrics listing spreadsheet, or

3) using the search utility in Google Sheets. (Add-ons > Finbox > Search Supported Functions)

The following table summarizes supported period formats:

Examples

• Get the latest stock price for Microsoft, ticker MSFT

• Get the adjusted closing stock price for Bank of America (BAC) on September 15, 2008 (2008-09-15)

• Get the total revenue for Facebook (FB), for the latest fiscal year (FY)

• Get the total revenue for Facebook (FB), for the fiscal year before last (FY-1)

• Get the total revenue for Facebook (FB), for the fiscal quarter before last (FQ-1)

• Get the revenue forecast for Facebook (FB), two fiscal years into the future (FY+2)

Pro Tips

Use relative cell references

Instead of typing the ticker and metric_slug inside the formula, put these formula inputs in a separate cell. This will make it easier to debug your formulas.

Using this approach in combination with relative cell references can save you a lot of time. Check the Watchlist section in the FNBX [Demo] spreadsheet for an example.

Grab the latest data and recalculate the workbook

To refresh the formulas in a spreadsheet and fetch the latest data points, click the Refresh Worksheet menu option:

Known Issues

Adding a row, adding a column, or reopening a Google Sheet will recalculate all formulas

By design, Google Sheets recalculates all formulas every time you reopen a spreadsheet or change the inputs of a function. This can be frustrating if you're building a fairly large model with lots of = FNBX( ) formulas. In these cases, we recommend creating a separate sheet that pulls in all the external data required and linking to the cells on a separate sheet. This is generally a good financial modeling practice to follow.

Sorting a column will recalculate all formulas

Google Sheets (and spreadsheets in general) are not good at sorting columns that have cells with formulas. Before sorting, we recommend duplicating the sheet and unlinking the values.

Google Spreadsheet UrlFetch Quota

If you have a lot of = FNBX( ) formulas in a sheet, you may run into a Google Sheets quota limit for UrlFetch Requests. This quota limits the number of data points that can be requested in a single day. Google places a 20,000 request limit (aka: urlfetch) for consumer gmail.com accounts. This limit can be increased to 100,000 requests if you have a G Suite account (listed as URL Fetch calls) as per this table.

Google wants you to upgrade to a G Suite account so they don't leave us any options to bypass this limit on your behalf. If you're running into this limit, we recommend that you use our Excel add-on instead, which is not subject to request limits. For more information, please see Using The Finbox Excel Add-on.

Authorization is required to perform that action.

The "Authorization is required to perform that action." error message occurs when you've logged into multiple Google accounts in your browser. For example, you may switch from name@gmail.com to name@company.com. This is a documented bug in Google Spreadsheets and has a heavily requested fix from Google developers. Since Google fails to attach the right user to the add-on, Finbox does not have the permission to do anything.

We've also seen this error if you have a .edu GSuite account. It’s possible that the add-on may need to be whitelisted by your GSuite admin.

Temporary Solution

You can verify that this is the issue by using the add-on in a different browser or Incognito mode (Ctrl+Shift+N) where you're aren't logged in with multiple Google accounts. 

Permanent Solution

To prevent this issue from happening in the future, this article from Google explains how you can create a separate Chrome profile for the account where you have the add-on installed. We'll also keep bugging Google to fix this issue.

Sources / Further Reading:

• FNBX Spreadsheet Add-on Demo Workbook
• Financial Model Templates
• Data Explorer
• Google Sheets: Types of Cell References