3 awesome Excel reports for productive sales planning for small businesses

Recently, a huge bunch of sites and applications for managing a family budget, accounting for investments, etc. have bred. I highly recommend not using them.

Briefly about me. I have been investing since 2021. He retired at 35. Now I live only on dividends, coupons and annuities. In the past he was an entrepreneur. My investment accounting may differ from the accounting of traders and investors who are just starting to build a portfolio.

Why not applications?

Because there is good old Excel. Everything was invented long ago.

Excel allows you to redo the accounting at any time. The approach to budgeting throughout life is bound to change. Any specialized program keeps you within the given framework.

You don't depend on developers. Your finances are your book of life. You don't have to trust her startup team. A new fashion project may be closed, updates may stop coming out. What will you do then?

But it's expensive!

If you are confused by the price for the Microsoft Office package, then you can safely use the absolutely free analogue of Excel - Open Office.

And the most convenient way is to use Google Sheets. They are free and very basic. Their capabilities are quite enough for a novice investor. Google spreadsheets allow you to keep track of anywhere and from any device. Even from your phone!

This is difficult!

Please note that I did not specifically start with templates and tables. Asking yourself the right questions and setting the right goals will make keeping records in spreadsheets one of the easiest and most enjoyable things in life for you.

The project plan is a key part of any project manager's toolbox. Of course, you want to start working on tasks as soon as possible, but if you find the time and outline a strategy for implementing the project, you can save money and resources. The parts of your project will constantly shift, and you will need a project plan template to keep track of these changes.

How to choose a suitable template from the huge number of existing ones? We've gone through all of them and selected the very best project plan templates in Excel. In this article, we'll walk you through the different types of templates and also explain when to use each one. You can also download an Excel project plan template for free. We'll walk you through what a project plan is and how to create one in Excel, and how to create one in Smartsheet, a tool that simplifies management and offers additional collaboration options.

How would you like to create your project plan?

Elapsed time: 3 minutes

Elapsed time: 30 minutes

How to choose the right project plan template

Depending on your goals, the project plan template can be very simple or very complex. You can add a static timeline or a fluid Gantt chart to your template, focus on activities or business goals.

Below are the various project plan templates and their use cases:

Workplan Template

A work plan template helps you break down large project goals into smaller, easy-to-follow steps. This type of template shows what tasks need to be completed, who is responsible for completing them, and also contains the due date for tasks. A timeline is included in the template to help define expectations and improve the transparency of task completion, allowing all project stakeholders to stay on top of deliverables and deadlines. A work plan template is best suited for large teams working on large projects with a lot of tasks and deadlines.

Gantt Chart Work Plan Template

The project plan is most commonly used in project management, where Gantt charts are needed to plan and report project progress. The Gantt View is a dynamic horizontal chart used to visualize the project timeline and is an important tool for organizing stakeholder access to project status changes. This template is perfect for project managers who work on large projects with a lot of contributors.

Over the past ten years, Tim Branck, as a successful business founder and analyst, has spent countless hours in Microsoft Excel. With his help, the businessman was able to build complex algorithms for selling on the stock exchange and analyze the activity of large corporations using complex mathematical formulas.

In his article, he shares several of the most commonly used reports that allow you to assess risks, forecasts for sales and the correctness of the chosen strategy for small business development.

Honestly, I spent so much in Excel that I started thinking in terms of tables and even dreaming in columns and lines. Many models ago, when I was a hedge fund analyst, my boss, one of two geniuses I have ever met, gave me a little piece of advice that shaped my future with financial models: “Always follow the money.” I analyzed potential investments in the fund and tried to understand some of the company's recent strategic decisions. My boss's comment only reinforced my new passion and desire to do a good job of a financial model that reflects how much money goes through the organization and how effective sales managers are, ”Tim Branck shares in his article.

If you are running a small company, the ability to link strategy with real numbers is really critical. For example, you are confident that you can increase your profit every month by 25% for the next year. What metrics will you be guided by to achieve this growth? What CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) would you need for such a task?

Given what these costs have been in the past, how much money do you need to spend on marketing / advertising to generate a given revenue growth? Do you have that much money in general that you can invest in marketing? Also, how will the rest of the organization handle the increasing flow of new customers?

Once you take a little time to play these scenarios over time and across all departments of your business, you can see how realistic your initial assumptions were. If they were unfounded, then it could lead to cash flow problems, layoffs and even the destruction of your business.

The following three models can help you avoid these situations:

Three-year forecasting report.
Model of the last four months.
Cohort income analysis.

Forecasting for three years

Lets you calculate simple income and cost forecasting model.

Initial Business Performance Calculation - Initial Business Performance Calculation will help you quickly understand how good your business idea is and how much profit you can expect from its implementation. This model is made in Excel. At the same time, macros are not used in it, and additional add-ins are not used, which means that anyone can understand it. This is perhaps the simplest model that will help you quickly and with maximum effect go through the main aspects of organizing a business and, in the end, will show whether you should further develop your chosen idea.

Step-by-step instructions for performing a full range of financial calculations for a business plan - this instruction consists of 14 main blocks (steps), where I explained in simple words and as detailed as possible how the financial part of a business plan is built. All steps are shown on the example of my financial model in Excel, on the development of which I spent 9 months of meticulous work, entered thousands of formulas and built templates for basic tables and analytical charts. Download the model and build your financial part of the business plan in it.

Excel Model for Small Business Idea Analysis is a simple template solution for determining the profitability of a business idea and conducting its initial analysis before you start spending your time and money on preparing a complete business plan. This model makes it easy to determine how profitable or unprofitable your chosen business idea. Also, in this format, you can pre-calculate the amount of payments on loans, draw up a personnel plan, marketing strategy, identify suppliers and competitors, and also draw up a portrait of your ideal client.

The Simplified Business Plan Model is a template for calculating the break-even point and preliminary determination of profitability for your specific project.

Universal template for creating a business plan - a template for drawing up a business plan intended for internal use by small and medium-sized businesses of various industries. This template allows you to draw up a business plan in its main sections such as Summary, Market Analysis, Production Plan, Personnel Plan, Financial Plan, Risks, etc. This model makes it possible to prepare a business plan for both one scenario of the development of events, and allows you to compare three options so that you can simulate different scenarios of business development and visually compare their differences.

MS Access Solutions:

Universal template for SWOT analysis - an automated format for compiling SWOT analysis for small and medium businesses. Using this development of mine, you can easily identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business. Also, this development allows you to supplement all sections of the SWOT analysis with your own options.

The automated assistant to the realtor is a program with which you can compose an informative and beautiful description of the apartment you want to rent or sell in 8-10 minutes. The compilation of the announcement is carried out by answering the usual questions regarding the description of the apartment (very similar to a simple questionnaire). All advertisements you have created are saved to the database and you can always return to them for editing. Filling out one description for an apartment, you get four options for ads: a full ad, broken down into main sections (location, description, adjoining territory and infrastructure), a full ad without division into sections, ad texts of about 1000 and 500 characters, including spaces.

Word templates:

A business plan template is a simple template that is broken down into main sections: Confidentiality Agreement, Summary, Company Description, Products and Services, Market Analysis, Strategy Description, Management Organization, Financial Plan.

Template for conducting a SWOT analysis - a standard square of SWOT analysis, placed on sheet A4, divided into four parts, in each of which you can write down the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your business.

An example of building a financial model of an enterprise in Excel

Any business plan needs financial calculations. And the most convenient tool for this is the Excel spreadsheet. The popularity of the program is due to its ease of use and versatility. Let's consider the features of the editor that will be useful in drawing up a business model.

The model can be placed on one sheet or on different sheets. In any case, the order of the calculation tables should correspond to the logic of the project description:

tables for calculating investments;
income and expenses;
financing;
final reporting forms, indicators.

Investment plan

construction and / or purchase of buildings;
purchase of equipment;
deferred expenses;
investments in PSC (net working capital).

Initial data for calculating the cost of purchase or construction of buildings:

Payment schedule without VAT = Costs with VAT / (1 + VAT rate). Excel formula for cell C6: = C4 / (1 + $ B $ 5).
Incomplete investments - the amount of investments in assets excluding VAT before the period of their entry on the balance sheet. Excel formula for cell C8: = IF (C1

The cost of purchasing equipment and elements of deferred expenses in the investment plan are compiled in the same way. Features of deferred costs: