Advertisers who manage multiple accounts using monthly invoicing sometimes need to make billing changes to many accounts at once. Performing billing actions in bulk saves on the time and effort needed to update individual accounts manually. In this article, we’ll show you how to download, edit, and upload spreadsheets to make changes to many account budgets at once.
Before you begin
Bulk billing actions require admin access to a manager account. You'll be able to make edits to all managed accounts that fall under, but not above, the manager account you're signed into. Make sure you're signed in at the appropriate level.
Add new budgets
Use this option to create brand new budgets for one or multiple client accounts.
Create multiple account budgets at once
Download the template:
- Sign in to your Google Ads manager account
- Click Accounts from the menu on the left.
- From the Budgets tab, click the 3-dot icon
and select Upload.
- Click View templates to select a predefined spreadsheet.
- Find “New account budgets” and click your preferred file type underneath.
- A file will be downloaded in your computer.
and select Upload.Edit the template offline:
- Open the file you downloaded from the “Upload” page.
Notes:
- If you have chosen to use the .csv template, be sure to open the file in comma separated format.
- Customer ID is required for each budget you want to add. You enter each manually, or download a spreadsheet of IDs from the Accounts page, clicking the 3-dot icon
- Enter information for each account on a new line.
- If needed, enter parameters to apply to the upload.
Use the table below to understand what to enter for each column, and how to use parameters.
| Customer ID | Required: Enter customer IDs for individual Google Ads accounts. Find these numbers under the account name, in the first column of the Accounts table. If left blank, budget creation for the row will fail. |
| Budget amount | Required: This amount will set limits on how much the account can spend across campaigns. All ad serving is paused when this budget amount is reached. See below instructions for editing budgets, if you want to change this amount in bulk later. |
| Start Date | Required: Enter the date you want the budget to begin, using the format YYYY-MM-DD. If your date overlaps with an existing budget, you’ll receive an error. See the parameters list below to learn how to automatically resolve conflicts. |
| End Date | Required: Enter “None” without quotes for a budget that runs indefinitely, or until spending limit is reached. Otherwise, enter a future date, using the format YYYY-MM-DD. |
| Budget Name | Optional: Naming your budget may make for easier identification, if you need to locate it in your account or on your invoices. |
| Purchase Order | Optional: Including a PO number can help you match Google invoices to your in-house accounting systems. This can include numbers, letters, and dashes. |
| Notes | Optional: Use this field to record notes that might be useful for later viewing. |
Parameters
Note the “Parameters” row, just above the table headers. Parameters allow you to add special instructions to actions prescribed by the upload. It’s important to note that these instructions will apply to all entries in the spreadsheet. When adding parameters, be sure to copy them exactly as they are below or in the template, including the semicolon(;). These are your options:BillingActionType=NewAccountBudgets;- This is the default parameter for adding new budgets. Don’t change this, or your upload will fail.AutoFixBudgetOverlap=True;- Add this to the parameters line to automatically resolve budgets with conflicting dates. When you use this, the existing budget will be cancelled and the new one will be scheduled.ServiceAgreementType=Budget; BudgetApproverEmail=insert email here; BudgetApproverName=insert name here;- These 3 parameters work together to trigger a new budget service agreement for each budget in the sheet. Remember to replace “insert email/name here” with the email and name of the contact that should accept the service agreement. Without these parameters, budgets will be attributed the previously accepted Service Agreement. Most advertisers shouldn't need to use these advanced options.
Tips:
- Save the edited template with a unique name to keep track of your bulk upload actions.
- Uploaded spreadsheets should contain no more than 500 rows (including headers and instructions). If you have more than about 475 budgets to add, split them into multiple sheets for a smoother experience.
Upload the edited template to the Google Ads account manager:
- Return to the “Upload” page (instructions above).
- Click Choose file, which will open a window for you to browse your computer files.
- Find and select the edited spreadsheet to upload to Google Ads.
- Under “File selected” you should now see the spreadsheet you created from the template.
Review the updates:
Once you’ve uploaded your file, you’ll see options to Preview, Apply, or Cancel the changes above the budgets table.
- Preview: It’s a good practice to start with a preview to see if there are any errors in your upload. After you click Preview you’ll see a table showing counts for how many changes are requested, how many would be successful, and how many would produce errors if you applied the upload to your account. Click Details for a line by line report for each budget.
- Apply: After you’ve previewed the upload results, click Apply to make the changes to your account budgets. You can also apply changes without previewing. When the edit is complete, you’ll see a notice at the bottom of the page. Click Details to get a full report of which budgets were successfully changed and which had errors. The “Result” column will explain each error.
Note:There may be errors that did not appear when you used the "Preview" tool.
- Cancel: To start over or choose a different file, click Cancel.
Edit existing budgets
Use this option when you want to edit account budget details for one or multiple client accounts. You can edit a single portion of the budget, like the amount or the end date, or edit several aspects. You can also delete account budgets using this method.
Change multiple account budgets at once
Download your existing budget data:
- Sign in to your Google Ads manager account
- Click Accounts from the menu on the left.
- From the Budgets tab, click the 3-dot icon
- Select Download all budgets to download budget data for accounts managed directly by this manager, as well accounts managed by its sub-managers.
- Select Download to download budget data for only the accounts managed directly by this manager.
- Click a file type from the list to begin the download.
Tip: Save an original copy of your data, in case you need to roll back changes.
Download the template:
- From the Budgets tab, click the 3-dot icon
- Click View templates to select a predefined spreadsheet.
- Find “Edit account budgets” and click your preferred file type underneath.
- A file will be downloaded to your computer.
Edit the template offline:
To edit budgets you’ll need the Customer ID and the Budget ID for each budget.
- Open the file you downloaded from the “Upload” page.
- Open the file(s) containing your existing budget data.
- Copy the Customer ID and Budget ID columns from them and paste them into the corresponding columns in the template.
Tip: Budget name is an optional in the template, but it's recommended that you also copy this column to make it easier to differentiate between budgets while you're editing the template.
- Enter information only in fields you want to change. For example, if you only want to change the budget end date, enter a date there and leave all other columns blank.
Use the information below to understand what to enter for each column, and how to use parameters.
| Customer ID | Required: Enter customer IDs for individual Google Ads accounts on separate rows. If left blank, budget editing for the row will fail. |
| Account Budget ID | Required: Enter account budget IDs for individual budgets on separate rows. If left blank, budget editing for the row will fail. |
| Currency | Optional: If you’re not changing the budget amount, you can leave this blank. Required: If a budget amount is present, you must also specify the currency. |
| Budget Amount | Optional: Enter a whole number, without commas. You can also enter “Unlimited” without quotes if you want the budget to be free of spending limits. |
| Start Date | Optional: Enter “Now” without quotes to make the budget active as soon as the upload is approved. Otherwise, enter a future date, using the format YYYY-MM-DD. |
| End Date | Optional: Leave blank or enter “None” without quotes for a budget that runs indefinitely, or until spending limit is reached. Otherwise, enter a future date, using the format YYYY-MM-DD. |
| Budget name | Optional: Naming your budget may make for easier identification, if you need to locate it in your account or invoices. |
| Purchase order | Optional: Including a PO number can help you match Google invoices to your in-house accounting systems. This can include numbers and letter, but should not have spaces or special characters. |
| Notes | Optional: Use this field to record notes that might be useful for later viewing. This is strictly for your convenience and is not tracked by Google. |
| Cancel changes | Optional: Enter “TRUE” without quotes to cancel a previously submitted change request. This option cancels any change request that is pending approval. If you'd want to remove an approved budget that's active or has a future start date, use the "Delete" option described below. |
| Delete budget | Optional: Enter “TRUE” to completely delete the account budget listed in column B of the template. Use caution, as this action cannot be undone. |
Parameters
Note the “Parameters” row, just above the table headers. Parameters allow you to add special instructions to actions prescribed by the upload. It’s important to note that these instructions will apply to all entries in the spreadsheet. When adding parameters, be sure to copy them exactly as they are below or in the template, including the semi-colon. These are your options:
BillingActionType=EditAccountBudgets;- This is the default parameter for editing existing budgets. Don’t change this, or your upload will fail.AutoFixBudgetOverlap=True;- Add this to the parameters line to automatically resolve budgets with conflicting dates. When you use this, the existing budget will be cancelled and the new one will be scheduled.
Follow these tips to prevent errors:
- Include the semicolon (;) at the end of each parameter.
- Make sure there are no spaces within or between parameters.
After you’ve edited and saved your files, upload them to Google Ads:
- Return to the “Upload” page (instructions above).
- Click Choose file, which will open a window for you to browse your computer files.
- Find the edited spreadsheet and click Open to upload it to Google Ads.
- Under “File selected” you should now see the spreadsheet you created from the template.
Review the updates:
Once you’ve uploaded your file, you’ll see options to Preview, Apply, or Cancel the changes above the budgets table.
- Preview: It’s a good practice to start with a preview to see if there are any errors in your upload. After you click Preview you’ll see a table showing counts for how many changes are requested, how many would be successful, and how many would produce errors if you applied the upload to your account. Click Details for a line by line report for each budget.
- Apply: After you’ve previewed the upload results, click Apply to make the changes to your account budgets. You can also apply changes without previewing. When the edit is complete, you see a notice at the bottom of the page. Click Details to get a full report of which budgets were successfully changed and which had errors. The “Result” column will explain each error.
Note: There may be errors that did not appear when you used the "Preview" tool.
- Cancel: To start over or choose a different file, click Cancel.
Errors
Errors are handled on a per row basis. So, if you upload 100 rows and ten have errors, 90 actions will be successful, and you’ll receive 10 errors. You can fix errors by creating a new spreadsheet with only failed rows, with corrected fields.
Common causes for errors
- Missing or incorrect IDs: Each template will require, at minimum, a Google Ads customer ID for each row. When editing budgets, an Account budget ID is also required. Be sure you’ve included these, that they are accurate and correctly formatted. The best way to ensure accuracy is to download data from your account and paste it into the provided templates.
- Incorrectly formatted entries: Pay close attention to the formatting guidance at the top of each column.
- Overlapping change requests: Google Ads will generate an error if budget run dates either conflict with existing budgets (and no parameter is used to auto resolve the conflict), if there’s already an existing change request for a particular budget, or if associated payments accounts are not yet active.
- Permissions: Be sure the user uploading the spreadsheets has an appropriate permission level, as if they were completing the action manually. For example, the uploader may need access for creating or editing budgets, or for accessing a payments profile.
- Delete or Cancel: When editing a budget you can delete or cancel, but not both. You should enter True in either the Cancel Changes column or the Delete Budget column but not in both for a given line item. Adding True in both columns for the same line item will result in an error.
