Businesses need all the help they can get. These 15 free Word and Excel templates for business help with everything from cost-benefit analysis to timesheets.
Business templates are a great way to work consistently and not have to reinvent the wheel each time you need to do repetitive tasks. ProjectManager is more than great project management software, it’s a depository of dozens of free Word and Excel templates for business that you can download right now.
1. SWOT Analysis
Businesses need to make strategic plans if they want to remain competitive and profitable. Our free SWOT analysis template for Word is a method that can be used to evaluate your business environment. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, which can then be defined within and outside of your organization.
The free business template is set up in four quadrants. One for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Vertically, up the left-hand side of the template are two distinctions: one for external and the other for internal. Then on top there are also two categories: one for positive and another for negative. As you do your research, place what you find in the appropriate square. From this visual tool, you can make a viable strategic plan for your business.
2. Timesheet Template
It’s said that your employees are your most valuable resource. So, why would you want to give them cumbersome timesheets? Using our free timesheet template for Excel is a simple and effective tool for keeping track of the time your employees spend on their work. It’s good for them and it’s good for managers to track time spent on tasks.
Of course, a template is not secure. ProjectManager is cloud-based project management software that delivers real-time data and secure timesheets. Our timesheets make it easy to track the amount of time your employee is spending on their tasks as well as costs and progress. Use them to not only streamline payroll but control your labor costs. Even better, our timesheets work seamlessly with task management, reporting features and more to boost productivity and give managers greater visibility into their employees’ work. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.
3. Project Budget Template
One of the most important aspects of any business is its bottom line. If you can’t make a profit, you can’t stay in business. Budgets are estimates of the costs that you’ll spend over a period of time. They need to be accurate, which is where our free project budget template for Excel comes in. It is certainly one of the more important free Excel templates for business.
Making an accurate forecast for a budget is hard. There are many uncertainties. But you can use our free Excel template for business to capture labor costs, consultant fees, raw materials, software licenses, travel expenses and even those costs that are recurring, such as telephone charges, office space and equipment, general administration and company insurance. Be sure to use our free project budget template before you embark on any business endeavor.
4. RACI Matrix Template
There are multiple stakeholders in every business. From executives to employees and customers, everyone has some vested interest in the business. Being able to identify those roles and responsibilities as well as how they relate to the overall business and its communications is what our free RACI matrix template for Excel helps you determine.
RACI is another acronym, this one stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. The value of this free Excel template for business is that it lists everyone in the business on the left-hand column and then the top row identifies them by title. Then you can add the corresponding initial (R, A, C or I) that allows you to understand their place in the business and will help everyone know as well.
5. Cost-Benefit Analysis
A free Excel template for business that no enterprise should be without is our free cost-benefit analysis template for Excel. When you’re exploring business opportunities you need to make sure that they’re worth the time, effort and especially cost. This free template will allow you to test the waters so you know if you will swim or sink if you take on the project.
A cost-benefit analysis is used by businesses to look at what they expect to pay for a project against what benefits or opportunities it will provide them. In short, will they make money or gain some advantage? Is it worth it? That answer can save a company a lot of frustration down the line or put them in a position to reap the rewards of its endeavor. Either way, it’s a free template that no business can do without.
6. Meeting Minutes Template
One thing that business people seem to agree about is that there are too many meetings. However, meetings are essential for communication, brainstorming and more. That doesn’t mean they don’t meander, but with an agenda, they can stay on point. With our free meeting minutes template for Word, you can also capture the important takeaways.
Using our free template for business allows you to collect all the necessary information in a format that is easy to read and, therefore, more likely retained by those who are in attendance. Minutes also help with documentation and save time during the meeting. That’s because everything is laid out, from the agenda to action items and even scheduling the next meeting.
7. Inventory Template
Businesses run lean and mean if they want to stay in business. If your business has inventory then knowing exactly what you have and what you need is key to success. If you have our free inventory template for Excel then you’ll always have the materials you need on hand and never have costly delays in production to restock your inventory.
The free inventory template records the level of stock you’re warehousing as well as tracking turnover. It’s all there on one document, which makes it easy for managers to know what they have and when they have to order more. Not only manufacturers, but retailers can use the free Excel template for business to see what is and isn’t selling.
8. Gap Analysis Template
Businesses don’t have the luxury of resting on their laurels. Stagnation leads to death. But wanting to improve and improving are two different things. That’s why our free gap analysis template for Excel is so critical for any business that wants to stay competitive. It helps businesses set long-term goals and stay innovative.
This free Excel template for business is a chart that collects the data you need to create an action plan that will move a business from where it currently stands in the marketplace to where it wants to be in the future. It does this by focusing on areas of improvement, using a gap percentage to show how far you have to go, including a timeline and resource management to get you there.
9. Project Prioritization Matrix Template
The insight to know which project needs your attention if you’re managing a portfolio or program is key to managing your precious resources wisely to get the best return on your investment. Your business has a long-term strategy and using our free project prioritization matrix template for Excel helps you determine which projects are aligned with that strategy objectively and need attention immediately.
It does this with what’s commonly referred to as an Eisenhower matrix. It’s a chart broken up into four quadrants: must be done immediately, scheduled for the near future, delegated and delete or move. Across the top of the chart are two columns, one for do now and the other for doing later. On the left-hand side are two rows: crucial and not crucial. By placing your projects in one of these quadrants you can make more insightful decisions as to where to place your business efforts.
10. Organizational Chart Template
As businesses grow, they can become like a freighter, too big to turn swiftly. Our free organizational chart template for Excel won’t necessarily make your business more nimble, but it’ll help you stay competitive and improve departmental communication. Knowing who reports to who and who has authority to do what in a business will help you respond quickly to market forces and that makes this free Excel template for business so valuable.
A visual chart that shows the internal structure of a business, this hierarchical document breakdown the chain of command from top to bottom. It lists everyone’s name and position and shows where they stand in the organization of the business. Besides showing the relationships of the employees in a business it also helps to analyze the needs of a workforce, which makes it easier to know when you have to hire staff or streamline to create greater efficiency.
11. Weekly Work Schedule Template
How you handle your human resources is instrumental to the success of your business. Organizing the work schedules of your employees keeps the company productive. Manage workflow with our free weekly work schedule template for Excel. This free Excel template for business lists all your employees, where and when they work as well as their responsibilities over a period of a week.
This not only helps with productivity but ensures that you are efficiently balancing your workforce. It’s a way to organize work and keep everyone working at capacity without over-allocating them. This helps to reduce the cost of your resources while keeping to deadlines. There’s also the fact that you can prioritize the work that must be done over the week. It also keeps the work-life balance that retains employees and lifts morale.
12. Action Plan Template
Businesses have strategies, but they’re just ideas on paper until they’re executed. An action plan turns that strategy into actionable steps that will ideally lead to the outcome you’ve planned to achieve. To outline those steps use our free action plan template for Excel. It will visualize the steps necessary to meet your business objectives and goals.
This action plan is made up of tasks and the free Excel template for business even breaks these tasks into subtasks, which are action items. It also notes the team, time and resources that will be required to complete the work. This includes a timeline to organize those tasks, prioritize them and assemble the team who will execute the work.
13. Request for Quote Template
Businesses can’t do everything themselves. They contract out work often but even more, they build relationships with suppliers who provide them with the materials they require to get their work done. Getting the supplies they need, when they need them is done through a request for quote (RFQ) process. To secure the procurements you need for your business, use our free request for quote template for Word.
The RFQ is often used with the request for proposal, the latter being how contracts between businesses and suppliers are defined. This free template is key to negotiating the price, amount and delivery of those supplies necessary for your work. Through a RFQ, both sides can come to an equitable agreement. This free template is ideal for keeping your supply costs down.
14. Marketing Calendar Template
If your business is marketing a product or service that’s a whole other job you have to do on top of everything else. Planning a marketing campaign involves deadlines, coordinating resources and much more. Using our free marketing calendar template for Excel shows you the campaign and activities on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis to help you stay on track.
This customizable free Excel template for business will allow you to visualize your marketing plan over a specific period of time. You can organize your schedule, the many tasks that are involved and their duration. There’s a place to describe the work and when it’s due as well as the people who are involved in doing that work. You can even set marketing goals to measure the success of your campaign.
15. Change Log Template
There isn’t a business that has not had to change something in order to remain solvent. But changes are disruptive and if you’re not managing them they can end up causing damage or worse to your business. Our free change log template for Excel captures those changes and tracks them throughout their life cycle until they have been resolved.
This provides a business with greater visibility. You identify the change and assign someone in the business to be responsible for addressing it. That creates accountability and managers can be certain that the change, whatever it might be, is taken care of. Not all changes are created equally, either. You can prioritize the change on this free Excel business template and better manage the time and cost related to the change.
16. Excel Timeline Template
This Excel timeline template is a versatile business planning tool that can be used to visualize all the projects your business will execute in the future, identify the team or business department responsible for those projects and mark down milestones and deliverables. One of the main advantages of using this template is that it comes with various time scales to better adjust to your planning needs. You can use it to make 6-month, 1-year or 3-year timelines.
ProjectManager Helps With Business Planning
All of these free Word and Excel templates for business are helpful, but they can only take you so far. They are, after all, static documents. You have to manually update them and, if they’re shared, it can be difficult to impossible to know which version has the most current data. ProjectManager is cloud-based software that empowers businesses to work more productively and streamline their processes for greater efficiency. Plus, everyone is connected, any time and anywhere, and they’re working off of real-time data to make more impactful decisions.
Plan Business Strategy With Robust Gantt Charts
Businesses need to plan ahead, whether to implement their strategies and meet objectives and goals or to execute projects. That involves scheduling costs, resources and time. Our robust Gantt charts do all that and more. They link all four types of dependencies to help you avoid delays. You can also create milestones and set a baseline to track your planned effort against your actual effort in real time to keep your strategic plans on track.
Track Projects With Real-Time Dashboards
Once you’ve set a baseline, you can track your progress and performance across our software in real time. Toggle over to the live dashboard where colorful graphs and charts make it easy to see metrics, such as time, cost and more. Unlike lightweight tools, there’s no configuration required. It’s ready when you are to show a high-level view of the work you and your employees are doing.
That’s just a sampling of the features we have. There are also resource management tools that can help you balance your employees’ workload to make them more productive. Risk management features allow you to track those changes and make sure they don’t impact your schedule or budget. All this on a collaborative platform that makes it easy to share files, comment and more. Business templates are fine, but our software takes your business to the next level. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.
Related Business Content
If you’re not ready to take our free trial and upgrade your business, but still curious about how ProjectManager can help your business, we’ve got more for you to read. Below is a sampling of the free content on our site,, which includes weekly blogs, guides and, of course, free templates.
