Friday 17 April 2015

50+ Best Free Excel Templates & Dashboards To Help You Get Ahead at the Office

Excel templates are great because they can be applied to different business scenarios and be reused time and time again. Sometimes, one of your business templates may need some minor tweaks to better suit your current purposes, but having a good template on hand will save you a lot of time and effort. What’s better than a reusable Excel template? Perhaps a dashboard template. On the high end of templates are dashboards, which take your data and push them into cool looking charts and gauges that help measure progress.
What’s even better than that? Free Excel Templates and dashboards! Fortunately, there are some people who have spent hours laboring over awesome Excel dashboards and templates, who were kind enough to make them available online for free. There are a lot of templates floating around the Internet and we have looked high and low to the find the 50 best Excel templates and dashboards. Enjoy!

General Business

  1. Manage any project with this Project Budget template, which allows you compare actual project expenditures to estimates and helps you evaluate whether your project is staying within budget.  PC, 2013.
  2. Your business can’t survive without collecting money from your clients. Use this Simple Invoice for bill collectionPC, 2007.
  3. Track business expenses in an organized way with this Business Expense template. PC, 2007.
  4. Estimate business Profit and Loss and compare with actual results with this P & L template. PC, 2013.
    profit-loss-template-excel-screenshot
    Input your monthly revenues and expenses and let Excel do the rest of the work for you.
  1. Buying or selling a business or business unit? Track the key details and value the business in question with this Business Acquisition Worksheet. PC, 2007.

Financial Statements

  1. Every business needs to report its assets and liabilities on a yearly basis. This Balance Sheet not only helps you do this but also calculates important business metrics like the current, quick, and cash ratios. PC, 2013.
    Balance sheet template from MS
    This Balance Sheet template from Microsoft not only displays assets and liabilities but also key metrics like the Current Ratio and Working Capital.
  1. The Income Statement is the financial statement that displays yearly revenue and expenses. This particular version also calculates expenses as a percent of sales. PC, 2007.
  2. Cash is king! Track and display all your business cash flows with this handy Cash Flow Statement template. PC, 2013.

Personnel & Project Management

  1. Track employee information and payments with the Employee Payroll template from Vertex42. PC, 2003.
  2. Use a Key Performance Indicator dashboard to track key employee metrics that can help determine promotions and bonuses. This KPI dashboard is pretty general so you can actually use it to measure projects and product testing as well. PC, 2007.
  3. Plan out long projects with this Project PlannerPC, 2013.
  4. Use the classic project management Gantt Chart with this template from Vertex42. PC, 2010.
    Gantt Chart template for excel
    The Gantt Chart is a classic project management tool that Vertex42 has embedded into an Excel template.
  1. More Project Management dashboards from Chandoo. PC, 2007.
“The ability to create templates on your own is a powerful skill. Why do you think investment bankers and consultants get paid big bucks?”
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Marketing & Sales

  1. Make planning any marketing activity easy with this Marketing Budget template. Simply enter the projected expenses to find out how much your marketing activity will likely cost. PC, 2013.
  2. This Editorial Calendar template from Demand Centric not only helps you plan editorial activity but also allows you to track important related media contacts. PC, 2010.
  3. Document your buyer persona activity from search to sale with this Buying Processtemplate from Demand Centric. PC, 2010.
  4. The Content Marketing Assessment from Demand Centric helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your content marketing program. Once you input all the information required, it will produce a list of recommendations. PC, 2010.
  5. Use the Advertising Expenses template to document media expenses and plan for the upcoming months. It is set up for print, broadcast, and direct mail. PC, 2013.
  6. Need to assess how your site’s individual webpages are performing? Then use this Google Ranking Tracker from Search Engine People, which will automatically scrape the web and update your spreadsheet. PC, 2010.
  7. Use the Decision Maker Influencer Map template to evaluate and get buy-in from key stakeholders during complex sales. PC, 2010.
  8. Create multiple revenue projections with this Revenue Forecast template which allows you to input different opportunities and the likelihood of achieving them to create an accurate projection. PC, 2013.
  9. Track and display sales with this simple yet elegant Quarterly Sales Report template.PC, 2013.
  10. Even more Sales Dashboards from Chandoo. PC, 2010.

Test Your Excel Skills

Startup

  1. Getting ready to start up a new business venture? Almost all startups underestimate the expenses involved with starting up so this Startup Expenses template is a great way to help you record all of the possible startup expenses you might incur. PC, 2013.
  2. Putting together a business plan is a serious undertaking. Make sure you have covered all the bases with this Business Plan ChecklistPC, 2007.
  3. Business plans come in many shapes and forms. This particular Sample Business Plan is all within an Excel worksheet. PC, 2007.
  4. A crucial step in any startup is breaking even. Use this Breakeven Analysis template to determine how long it will take your business venture to break even. PC, 2013.
    break even chart for excel
    The break even analysis is a classic tool that helps startups project when they will break even.
“If you are the go-to guy (or gal) in your office for making Excel templates, you will go far in your career.”

Presentation

  1. Make a printable calendar with this Calendar Template from Vertex42. PC, 2003.
  2. Incorporate some cool looking Flow Charts with this template from Microsoft. PC, 2013.
  3. Are the out-of-the-box charts in Excel not enough for you? Here are 72 cool looking charts from Chandoo. PC, 2010.

Personal Finance

  1. Wonder where all the money goes at the end of the month? Keep on top of your finances with personal budgeting templates. Simply enter your income and expenses and let Excel do the number crunching. Specific templates are available for college students and familiesPC, 2013.
  2. The Money Manager template takes your monthly budgeting even further, allowing you track your expenses and budget over the course of a full year. PC, 2010.
  3. Getting ready for your first home purchase? Use the Home Loan Calculator (PC, 2013) tocompare up to four different home loan options and figure out which loan is best for you. Vertex42 also makes a Home Equity Calculator (PC, 2010) for those taking out a second mortgage that helps you answer the following: How much can I borrow? How much will my payments be? How much home equity will I have in 5 years?
  4. Do you invest in the stock market? Check out the Portfolio Slicer package for Excel 2010, a free template that comes with special macros that fetch up-to-the-minute stock quotes from Yahoo.
    Portfolio Slicer takes fetches data from Yahoo! Finance and pushes it into a number of tables and charts.
    Portfolio Slicer takes fetches data from Yahoo! Finance and pushes it into a number of tables and charts.
  1. Having trouble remembering your deductible donations at tax time? Use Tax Deductible Donation Tracker to track all of your charitable donations and have everything ready to be itemized when it is time to file your yearly tax return. PC, 2013.
  2. Trying to figure out how much money you need to save now to retire comfortably? The Retirement Calculator takes your age and earnings and calculates a yearly target savings . PC, 2013.
  3. Saving up for something special? Use Saving Estimator to help you reach that goal. Set your target, date, and savings parameters, and Excel will calculate a weekly, monthly, and yearly savings rate for you. PC, 2013.
  4. Wondering what your net worth is? Then use this Personal Wealth Analysis to find out. PC, 2013.
“With some extra knowledge of Excel you can easily customize a pre-made template exactly for your needs.”

Around the House

  1. Are you someone who likes to stay on top of your schedule? Then check out the Daily Planner from Vertex42. It is formatted very similarly to an old-school plastic binder desktop calendar. PC, 2010.
  2. Wondering where all the money goes to at the supermarket? Track your grocery spending to the penny with this Grocery List template. PC, 2013.
  3. Are you an eco-friendly cookaholic? Then go paperless and store all your favorite recipes with the Recipe Tracker template. PC, 2013.
    Recipe-tracker-screenshot
    These days you can do just about anything in Excel as indicated by this recipe tracker
  1. This is the stay-at-home mom or dad’s dream tool. Plan all your meals for the monthand the Monthly Meal Planner will spit out a weekly shopping list! PC, 2013.
  2. Love movies? Create your own Movie List  with this Excel template, keep track of what you watched and record your personal rating score! PC, 2013.
  3. Getting serious about your health? Use the Weight Tracker to track your weight loss progress and your friends’ or co-dieters’ weight loss too. PC, 2013.
  4. Getting ready for a garage sale? Use the Home Inventory template to catalogue your belongings and their value. It also is very handy if you happen to have home damage that is covered by insurance. PC, 2013.
  5. Remodeling the kitchen? Use the Home Remodel Budget Dashboard to see if your home project is meeting its budget. PC, 2013.
  6. Got a party coming up? Use the Party Planner to track guest lists and make seating arrangements. PC, 2013.
    party planner template for excel
    Use a template to plan your next party, from costs to seating arrangements.

More Template Resources

  1. For finance valuation models check out ExInFM
  2. Templates for Mac from MicrosoftMac, 2011.
  3. Microsoft Template Store
  4. Vertex42
  5. Chandoo
  6. Spreadsheet Zone
  7. Mr. Dashboard
  8. Dashboard Spy

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