download business plan template excel

Free Business Plan Template

One of the reasons that so many small businesses fail is that they don't do the necessary up front work to create an accurate and realistic business plan. Creating a business plan doesn't guarantee success, but the process of writing a plan is critical for any successful new business. It isn't our goal to try to tell you everything you need to know about creating a business plan. Instead, our goal is to make the process easier by providing a professionally designed business plan template that you can edit easily using Word and Excel .

Business Plan Template

License : Private Use (not for distribution or resale)

Authors : Jon Wittwer and Jim Wittwer

Update (7/22/2016) : We've added a basic break-even analysis worksheet to the companion Excel workbook.

Description

This template provides a business plan outline with sample questions, tables, and a working table of contents. It was created for newer versions of Word and Excel (Office 2007 or later) so that you can easily change the fonts and color scheme and the file will be compatible with the mobile and web-based Word & Excel apps.

It is best to use Excel for financial statements, data tables and charts. So, we have provided a companion Excel workbook with these sample financial statements and other tables and graphs that you can copy and paste into your Word document.

The companion workbook combines many of the different spreadsheets you can find on Vertex42.com, but customized specifically for inclusion in a business plan.

Using the Business Plan Template

Editing headings and table of contents.

Word allows you to assign format Styles to text and paragraphs, and we've designed the template to use these Styles for defining headings, sub-headings, and figure captions.

If you want to add a new section so that the Table of Contents updates correctly, just add a new heading in the body of the document and assign it the Heading 1 or Heading 2 style.

To update the Table of Contents, go to the References tab and within the Table of Contents group of buttons, click on Update Table and then "Update entire table."

Copy/Paste From Excel to Word

For simple tables, you can use Copy/Paste (Ctrl+c / Ctrl+v) to copy a table from Excel to Word. This will typically paste the data as a formatted and editable table in Word, though none of the formulas will be functional within Word (and the table will not be linked to Excel). If you don't want the table to be editable in Word, you can "Paste as a Picture" using Paste Special or by choosing the "Picture" option when you right-click in Word to paste the table.

Important : When you paste a chart object into your business plan, make sure to "Paste as a Picture" because pasting the chart as an embedded object means that the entire spreadsheet becomes embedded in your Word document (even though what you see is only the chart).

If you want to insert a table into Word as a "Linked Object" so that when you edit Excel, the table in Word will update automatically, you may have a more difficult time preserving the formatting of the original. However, at the least the entire spreadsheet won't be embedded within your business plan Word document.

More Related Templates

Resources for Writing a Business Plan

• Write Your Business Plan at SBA.gov - Anybody starting a business should become familiar with the SBA (small business association). SBA.gov also has an online tool for creating a business plan .
• YouTube: How to Write a Business Plan - Business Wales (3 minutes) - This video offers a quick overview and tips for the essential parts of a business plan.
• YouTube: How to Write a Business Plan - Berkeley-Haas (71 minutes) - This presentation offers both the venture capitalist and entrepreneur perspective on how to write a business plan that can successfully attract funding.
• Write Your Business Plan at Entrepreneur.com - A book written by the staff of a company that should know what they are talking about.
• Sample Business Plans at bplans.com - Finding a business plan for similar businesses in your industry is a great way to get ideas for what to include in your plan. This site is a great resource for not only finding sample plans, but also for creating a business plan online using their step-by-step approach.

Other Free Business Plan Templates

• Business Planning Template Gallery at SCORE.org - This nonprofit organization (supported by the SBA) has provided expertise and free mentorship for millions of small business owners. They also have a useful collection of templates.
• Develop Your Business Plan at business.gov.au - This Australian Government site provides a really good business plan template for Word, including a detailed guide, questions to answer, and sample financial statements.

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Free Business Plan Template for Excel

Ajay Jagtap

• October 31, 2023

With 1 in 8 people using Excel, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that anyone has never used it at some point in life.

While we have all used it at least once—be it for school homework, college assignments, or travel planning—we never really got the hang of it.

(Excel formulas are tough!)

Preparing a business plan from scratch using Excel is not a joke; we get that. That’s why we created this business plan template in Excel .

So, no more worrying about Excel formulas or plan structure—download the document and follow the instructions in the article for successful business planning.

Sounds good? Let’s start with understanding the pros and cons of using Excel for planning:

Pros and Cons of Using Excel for Business Plans

Before we head to discussing the Excel business plan template, let’s understand the pros and cons of using Excel for business planning:

• Free to use:  MS Excel is 100% free for all its users, making it a cost-effective choice.
• Data Analysis:  Excel is a powerful tool for performing various financial and data analyses and calculations.
• Collaboration: Collaborating with your team while working on a project using Excel is easier.
• Lack of automation: Excel may not help create dynamic business plans with automated features.
• Limited presentation:  Excel cannot create an appealing business plan like a business plan software.
• Complex formulas: Excel’s formulas are complex and require a significant learning curve to master.

So these were the pros and cons. Let’s cut to the chase and discuss the key components of our free business plan Excel template.

Key Components of Our Excel Business Plan Template

It’s a fact—you cannot use Excel to create the entire plan from scratch, no! Excel is a powerful tool for complex calculations and analyses; let’s use it for that only.

So, we’ll use this business plan Excel template only to perform complex financial analyses and calculations—to prepare financial projections.

Following are the critical components of a good business plan template you must include in your financial plan:

1. Income Statement

The income statement is one of the key financial statements of your financial plan that highlights its profit and loss over a given period of time.

The critical components of your income statement include—revenue/sales, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), operational costs, EBITDA, interest, and others.

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2. Balance Sheet

Your balance sheet is a statement that reports your company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity, providing a snapshot of its financial position at a specific period of time.

The statement helping you calculate financial ratios includes the following:

• Assets—e.g. Inventory, cash, property.
• Liabilities—e.g. Accounts payable, loans, salaries to be paid.
• Owners equity—e.g. Capital investment/contribution.

3. Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement of your financial plan is the projection of your cash in and outflows over a certain period of time.

As one of three key components of your financial plan, the cash flow statement summarizes the amount of cash or cash equivalents entering or leaving your company.

4. Break-Even Analysis

A break-even analysis helps you determine the number of units you need to sell to cover all fixed and variable costs.

The break-even point is considered a measure of safety margin, and anything you sell beyond the point will result in profit.

While your balance sheet already highlights the assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity, assets are considered critical for investors to assess the company’s financial health. So, our simple business plan template (Excel) has a separate sheet for business assets.

6. Accounts Payable & Receivable

The accounts payable refer to the amount due to vendors or suppliers for services or goods received, whereas accounts receivable represent the money due to the company.

The increase or decrease in your accounts payable or receivable can be seen in your cash flow statement.

7. Working Capital

Working capital is the subtraction of your current liabilities from your current assets. As a critical element in identifying your company’s health, it helps investors understand if it has enough capital to pay employees and fund operations to meet short-term goals.

Download the Financial Forecast Template In Excel

We discussed all the critical statements to be covered in your financial plan. Now what? It’s time for you to download the financial forecast template and start preparing your financial plan.

Unlike other free Excel templates, this template has all the reports with the suggested revenue streams, expenses, and other details.

You can directly download and use the template to forecast cash flow, create balance sheets, and prepare income statements that provide detailed information about your revenue and expenses. So what are you waiting for?

How to Use an Excel Business Plan Template

We’re hoping you’ve already downloaded the business plan template. So, the question arises: How can this Excel template be used to prepare realistic forecasts?

Let’s get this over with:

Understand the template structure

Before you start planning, you must understand the structure of the financial portion of your business plan. Get a thorough review of the template and understand:

• What critical statements does it include?
• What are the revenue streams?
• What are considered to be assets and liabilities?
• What does the taxation structure look like?

And others. Once you thoroughly understand the structure, you can move ahead with the next step.

Analyze historical data

Financial forecasting is about assumptions—a lot of them, but accurate ones. If you’re a total stranger to financial forecasting, analyzing historical data will help you get off on the right foot.

Analyze the historical data and try to gain insights about your business financials:

• Monthly revenue over the last year?
• How much you’re spending on day-to-day operations?
• What is your sales growth rate? How fast is it increasing over time?

And others. These historical figures will be of massive help in the next step.

Make pre-assumptions

As I said before, financial forecasts heavily rely on certain assumptions like sales forecasts, operational expenses, revenue growth, and others.

So, in this step, you’ll make assumptions about these variables based on the historical data to make them realistic and accurate.

Prepare key financial reports

Once you have made pre-assumptions, it’s time to prepare forecasts. Don’t overwhelm yourself with a lot of numbers; start by preparing critical financial reports that include—a cash flow statement, balance sheet, and income statement.

Other statements of your plan rely heavily on these reports, so the process will become much easier after having prepared these three beforehand.

Monitor and track progress

After preparing your financial reports, the next step is timely monitoring these reports and tracking progress.

You can compare your assumptions with actual results to see if your projections are accurate and relevant to the changing market trends.

Analyzing metrics like customer acquisition rate, acquisition costs, net profit, and gross margin will help track progress.

If you follow these steps rigorously, you can surely make a decent plan to support your business strategies and achieve financial goals.

Still, it was just about financial planning. What about the entire business plan? Excel is a no-go for business planning; let’s see why.

How Excel may not be the best choice for business planning?

Since Excel doesn’t offer all the necessary features for business planning that a business plan software like Upmetrics would, it is not the tool to be used to create a comprehensive business plan.

Following are a few reasons why Excel may not be a better choice for business planning compared to a tool like Upmetrics:

• Limited features: Since it is not designed specifically for planning, it has limited business planning features compared to software like Upmetrics. A business planning software may include features like business plan builder, financial forecasting, and pitch deck creator.
• Limited collaboration: Everyone knows Excel isn’t the tool with the best collaboration features. Business plan software offers collaboration features, allowing multiple team members to work on a business plan simultaneously.
• No Automation: Upmetrics comes with many automation features like AI assistant and financial forecasting tool, helping entrepreneurs and small businesses save time and reduce human errors.
• No customizable templates: Upmetrics has 400+ business plan examples and templates that make it easier for new users to get started, which has not been the case with Excel.

These were just a few of many reasons why a planning tool is a better alternative than Excel to create a comprehensive plan to support their business strategy.

Improve Your Business Financial Plan with Upmetrics

I’d surely have recommended Excel for financial planning if you had asked maybe a decade ago.

Today? There’s no way Excel stands a chance when competing with a cutting-edge AI business planning solution like Upmetrics.

Upmetrics simplifies business planning with its library of business templates, financial forecasting tool, and AI-powered assistant, making it a much more efficient alternative to Excel.

What are you waiting for? Start planning today!

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Fill-in-the-blanks, AI-assistance, and automatic financials make it easy.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i create a business plan in excel.

It’s challenging to draft an entire business plan in Excel. However, you can use Excel to create the financial portion of your plan using a free business plan Excel template. A ready-made template is always better and faster than preparing your financial reports from scratch.

Are there any alternatives to Excel for creating a business plan?

Yes, there are a few alternatives to Excel for creating a business plan. However, using a business plan software like Upmetrics would be a better alternative to creating a business plan than others.

Why should I use an Excel template for my business financial plan?

You cannot certainly master Excel formulas in one day, and preparing advanced financial reports from scratch means you must be very good at accounting, budgeting, and Excel sheets and ready to spare some intense hours.

So, considering the complexity of Excel—using a ready-made template seems like a great starting point for budding entrepreneurs with no financial planning experience.

Are there any free business plan templates available in Excel?

Although it’s tough to create the entire business plan in Excel from scratch, Upmetrics offers a free business plan Excel template to help you gain inspiration and make the financial portion of your business plan.

Can I share my financial plan online with others using Excel?

Yes, you can share your financial plan online with others using Excel. To share your document with others, simply click on the “Share with People” option and enter their email addresses, and you have shared the doc.

About the Author

Ajay is a SaaS writer and personal finance blogger who has been active in the space for over three years, writing about startups, business planning, budgeting, credit cards, and other topics related to personal finance. If not writing, he’s probably having a power nap. Read more

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Professor Excel

Let's excel in Excel

Business Plan: How to Create Great Financial Plans in Excel

I guess, you are about to write a business plan and that is why you have come to this page. Very good – because in this article I am going to write down my experience with business plans and what I have learned creating them with Microsoft Excel. As I will point out again further down, I will only concentrate on the financial part of business plans. Specifically, how to set it up in Excel. Of course, you can also download an Excel template .

Parts of business plans

As you reached this page I suppose you already have a rough idea of what a business plan is. So, we will skip this part here.

A business plan is a formal written document containing the goals of a business, the methods for attaining those goals, and the time-frame for the achievement of the goals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan

But one comment concerning the scope of this article: The formal business plan has usually many different parts, in which you describe the business idea and product, the market, competition, legal construct and so on. But typically, investors are most interested in the financial part. They want to know first, what they can get out of it. Of course, the other parts are also very important, but the financial topics usually put everything described in the other sections into numbers.

I’m not going further into the details of all the other parts than then financial section here. Specifically, we will dive into the basics of the financial part and how to model it in Excel.

Please scroll down to download the business plan template. We are going to explore all the following advice with this template.

How to create a business plan in Excel

Advice 1: be clear about the purpose and the recipient of the business plan.

Before you start opening Excel, make sure that you are 100% clear of the purpose this business plan. Is the business plan just for you? Or do you create it for someone else, for example an investor or bank? Although the next steps might still be the same, the focus might be different. For example: Maybe you have a very good understanding of the major assumptions because you have been working in this field for some time. But for someone external you still need to validate them. Of course, in both cases the assumptions should be realistic and goals should be achievable. But maybe for your own peace of mind you would choose more pessimistic assumptions if the plan was only for you.

Advice 2: Go top-down in terms of line items

Now, let’s start in Excel. But how do we start?

My approach is to go top-down. I usually use a basic P&L (“Profit- and loss” calculation) structure to start with, having some placeholders for revenue and costs.

Specifically, I go through the following parts (also shown on the right-hand side).

Let’s assume that you develop and sell Excel add-ins: 50 EUR per license – once-off. You would now start with assumptions of how many you can sell per month and the price. This is your first revenue item. At this point in time, I would leave it like this. We can later drill further down as much as we need (for example modeling discounts, the connection between marketing spending and number of units sold, price changes, etc.).

If we have multiple products, we calculate them in a similar manner.

Cost of goods sold

Cost of goods sold – or COGS – refers to the direct costs of producing the goods sold. Depending on the complexity you could also summarize cost of sales here or keep it separately.

Often, the COGS are directly linked to the number of units produced so you could refer to the numbers already calculated for the revenues.

In our example from above, we don’t have any direct costs for producing the Excel add-ins because we develop them ourselves and our salary will be regarded under “Salaries and Benefits”.

All other expenses

The structure of the expenses highly depends on your business. I usually start with these:

• Salaries and Benefits
• Rent and Overhead
• Marketing and Advertising
• Other expenses

Again, these items might look completely different for you. Example: if you travel a lot for your business, you might plan travel costs separately.

Subtracting costs from the revenue leads to the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). This is one of the important financial performance indicators.

Amortization and depreciation

If you buy any assets for your business (for example machines, computers, even cars), you usually plan to use them over a certain period. When you first buy them, let’s say for 1,000 USD, you basically just exchange money for assets in the same amount. The problem: The assets will decrease in value the longer you use them. Within the cost items above, you don’t regard the acquisition value. So, how to regard them in your business plan?

You only regard the annual decrease of value. If you plan to use your 1,000 USD item for 5 years, you could (plainly speaking), each year regard 200 USD as depreciation.

Please note: If you later plan your cash, you have to make sure that you fully regard the initial sales price and not the depreciation.

The key difference between amortization and depreciation is that amortization is used for intangible assets, while depreciation is used for tangible assets. https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/whats-the-difference-between-amortization-deprecia.aspx

Subtracting the amortization and depreciation from the EBITDA leads to the second key performance indicator, the EBIT (earnings before interest and tax).

Interest and taxes

Eventually, you have to prognose your interest costs (for example what you have to pay for bank loans) and your taxes, which is typically just a percentage of the EBT (the earning before taxes).

Advice 3: Think about the business drivers carefully

Good business plans are driver based.

Business drivers are the key inputs and activities that drive the operational and financial results of a business. Common examples of business drivers are salespeople, number of stores, website traffic, number and price of products sold, units of production, etc. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/modeling/business-drivers/

Let me explain with an example: You want to plan the revenues. You have two different options:

• Revenue per month is split into number of units sold times price per unit.
• Number of units sold is further split into number of salespersons and number of items sold per salesperson and month, and so on.
• Or you could just write a number and every following year you assume a growth in percentage (e.g. +2% per year).

Let’s finish this section with some final comments:

• Choose drivers that are measurable. You will most probably later on compare the drivers to reality and therefore make sure that they are not impossible to measure.
• Figure out, which driver has most impact. You should focus on those first. Driver with no or very limited impact can be skipped initially.
• Are drivers depending on each other? If yes, it should be modeled accordingly.

Advice 4: Choose the smallest period from the beginning in your business plan

So far, we have been focusing on the line items, for example costs, revenue, or drivers. Now, let’s talk about the time frame.

The question is: Should you plan on annual, monthly or any other basis? Or a mix?

I have seen many business plans doing it something like this:

• Plan on monthly basis for the first 24 to 36 months.
• Switch to annual planning for the years 3/4 to 5.

Most business plans are not going beyond 5 years planning period.

My recommendation: Plan on monthly basis for the full period. There will be a point in time when you need to break it down into months. And it is always easier to sum up 12 months for annual values than to drill down from years to months.

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Advice 5: Keep a unified, professional business plan structure

This advice should count for most Excel models: Try to keep the same structure throughout the whole Excel file.

• Structure of worksheets: Make sure that most worksheets are set up with the same structure. For example, start with a headline in cell B2, years starting in column H, content in row 10.
• Layout / format of cells: Make sure you use a consistent formatting. For example, Excel provides cell styles – use them. For more recommendations about professional formatting, please refer to this article .
• Universal settings and assumptions should be consolidated on one sheet (for example tax rates, start date, company name).

Advice 6: Document business plan assumptions well

I can not say this often enough: Document your assumptions! Not only the values or variables, also your thoughts behind them. Why have you chosen this value? What is it based on? What is it used for?

Advice 7: Gross vs. net values

This question I am asked quite frequently: Should you use gross or net values? That means, include tax in revenues and costs?

Typically, you only work with net values, excluding VAT. For Germany with a tax rate of 19%, for example, if you invoice 119 EUR to a customer, you would only regard 100 EUR. Also, for costs, you would only regard net values.

Then, in your business plan, you start with revenue minus costs and eventually reach the EBT (earning before tax, please scroll up to see the P&L). From this, you calculate your company tax.

Advice 8: Think ahead

Some more things you should keep in mind when creating your business plan.

• Business plans are “living documents”. Keep in mind that at some point in the future you have to update it or extend it.
• Validate your assumptions: After some time, you will come back to your plan having real life figures. Now, it’s time to compare and – if necessary – adjust the plan.
• a valuation (“Discounted Cash Flow model”),
• liquidity planning,
• bank loan simulations,
• financial dashboards,
• budget planning,
• maybe even the first real official P&L (at least when it comes to the line items of your business plan)
• and much more…

Download business plan template

So, after reading all this description and advice, it’s time to start. Probably many things I have written above sounds like common sense, right? But I can assure you: Doing it and regarding as much advice as possible is not necessarily simple.

That’s why I have decided to create a template. I have pre-filled it with an imaginary example.

I know, there are countless Excel business plan templates around. So, why should you use this one?

• This template is very flexible: I have always included place holders so that you can add much more items if needed.
• In terms of the time frame, I have created monthly columns for up to ten years. Typically, you need less. Then just hide the extra columns.
• Also, I have created a consistent structure throughout the model.
• No fancy Excel functions and formulas, mainly just plain links.

Please feel free to take a look at it. If you like it, just use it. If not, please feel free to create your individual business plan – you now know how to do it!

Download link: Click here to start the download .

Image by koon boh Goh from Pixabay

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Image by Memed_Nurrohmad from Pixabay

Henrik Schiffner is a freelance business consultant and software developer. He lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. Besides being an Excel enthusiast he loves photography and sports.

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Business Plan Templates (40-Page MS Word + 10 Free Excel Spreadsheets)

Download this 40-page MS Word Business Plan template and 10 free Excel spreadsheets  to write your next business plan. Includes sample guidelines and interactive spreadsheets.

Sections include Marketing Plan, Market Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Sales Forecast, Development Plan, Operational Plan, Financial Plan, 12-Month Profit & Loss, Projected Cash Flow, Balance Sheet, Break-Even Analysis, Personal Financial Statement, and Exit Strategy.

Download Now for only $19.99 – Buy Here!

Business Plan Template: Blue Theme

Business plan template: red theme.

You get two templates in the zip file. One blue theme, the other red. The red theme of the MS Word template has the exact same content as the blue theme. You can change the color scheme by updating the styles.

NB: Let me know if you need any help with this.

Executive Summary

Products and Services

Customer Demographics

Competitive Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Sales Forecast

Operational Plan

12 Month Profit & Loss Projection

Projected Cash Flow

Balance Sheet

Break-even Analysis

Business Plan: Free Excel Templates

Some of the Excel spreadsheets include a Balance Sheet, Break-even Analysis, Cash Flow, Competitive Analysis, General Demographic Profile, Personal Financial Statement, Profit and Loss Projections, and Sales Forecast.

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary 2 Company Description 2.1 Mission Statement 2.2 History 2.3 Markets and Products 2.4 Objectives 2.5 Current Situation

3 Products and Services 3.1 Description of Products/Services 3.2 Production Process 3.3 Distribution/Service Delivery 3.4 New Products

4 Marketing Plan 4.1 Market Analysis 4.1.1 Research Findings 4.1.2 Growth Projections 4.2 Market Trends 4.3 Product 4.4 Customer Demographics 4.5 Competition 4.6 SWOT Analysis 4.7 Marketing Strategy 4.7.1 Positioning 4.7.2 Promotion 4.8 Price Comparison 4.9 Customer Service Plans 4.9.1 Retaining Customers 4.9.2 Customer Complaint Handling 4.10 Sales Forecast

5 Development Plan 5.1 Current Status 5.2 Development Plans 5.3 Development Timetable 5.4 Development Risks

6 Operational Plan 6.1 Current Premises 6.2 Current Premises Financial Details 6.3 Equipment, Vehicles & Fittings 6.4 Insurance Details 6.5 Production 6.6 Future Location 6.7 Legal Environment 6.8 Personnel 6.9 Inventory 6.10 Suppliers

7 Management and Organization 7.1 Professional and Advisory Support 7.2 Key People Details 7.2.1 Key Person 7.2.2 Key Person 7.2.3 Total Salary Costs 7.2.4 Number of Employees

8 Personal Financial Statement 8.1 Methods of Bank Finance 8.2 Assets as Security 8.3 Repayment for Borrowings

9 Financial Plan 9.1 12-Month Profit and Loss Projection 9.2 Projected Cash Flow 9.3 Opening Day Balance Sheet 9.4 Break-Even Analysis 9.5 Exit Strategy

10 Appendices 10.1 Glossary of Terms

Business Plan Template: Contents & Format

The Business Case templates are in Microsoft Word and Excel format (.doc & .xls).

The template pack includes the following documents:

Product Specifications

File Format : The templates are in  Microsoft Word   (.docx) and  Excel  format (.xlsx).

File Size:  The Download file is 2 MBs.

Opening the Files:  You don’t need any special software to unzip the files. To unzip the files, right click on it, then select Extract , and save it to your computer.

Getting Started:  Depending on your MS Office settings, the files may say Read Only when you open them. If this occurs, click  File ,  Save As  and save the files. There are no security settings on any of the files.

Images:  All of the images in the templates are copyright free.

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Top 16 Automated Project Management Excel Templates

Thousands of professionals use project management Excel templates and spreadsheets to plan their projects, and I never understood why — until I tried playing the “what does this formula do” game. 

The sheer flexibility of Excel lets you create a completely custom workflow and plan projects, track tasks, manage resources, risks, and reports in any way you want. But, creating these workflows takes skill, and a lot of time, and — for project managers — time is a precious resource.

So, here are 13 amazing free Excel project management templates that will save you time and make your job easier. 

Some, like the project status report template, are simple tables you have to manually update. Others, like the Gantt chart, WBS, Timeline, risk, budget tracker templates, and others, are fully automated with conditional formulas, filtering, automatic calculations, charts, and other interesting features. Feel free to download them and try them out for free, no email required.

NOTE: Please make sure to read the instructions provided in this guide for every template you download. Some of the more complicated templates also contains further instructions for use and customization in a separate tab within the Excel template that you can refer to.

Table of Contents

#1: Gantt chart template in Excel

The main feature of this Gantt chart template is, of course, the Gantt chart. Like any regular Gantt chart template worth its salt, this one will show you the dates, work days, and a colored line indicating the duration of tasks. 

But, with this particular Gantt chart template, you’ll also be able to track your project phases and milestones . Simply select “P”, “T”, or “M” next to the item name to indicate whether the item is a phase, task, or milestone, and the changes will automatically reflect in the formatting and in the Gantt chart.

Besides the Gantt chart, you’ll also be able to track the basic project parameters, such as the start and end dates with the number of workdays in between, the progress, assignees, and which team the assignee belongs to.

Like with all other templates on this list, you can add as many rows to the columns as you wish without breaking the formulas, as well as filter the data in the table and in the Gantt chart.

Since this template can track phases and milestones, it’s particularly well-suited to Waterfall project management . If you decide to forgo this functionality, it can be equally useful for other project management methodologies as well.

🔽 Download free Excel Gantt chart template

Free project management software

Create a Gantt chart in only 3 clicks and manage your project schedule with ease — try Plaky

#2: Project timeline template in Excel

This project timeline template is perfect for planning and tracking your overall project progress and status since it gives you a visual representation of your planned project timeline and budget, compared to their actual state.

All you need to do is fill out the details of your project plan in the table above and then regularly update the actual progress and spending over the course of the project. When you want to see a visual comparison of the two, simply switch the timeline view from planned to actual in the dropdown list.

This template will not track the various project details a regular task tracker template would, but it will give both you and your stakeholders a big-picture overview of the state of the project.

This is also an amazing template to include in your project status reports.

🔽 Download free Excel project timeline template

#3: Project budget template in Excel

With this free Excel project budget template you can track your allocated budget and expenditure for each individual task. You can categorize each task according to 4 fully customizable criteria for easier filtering and even track the budget for multiple projects at once.

The template contains 3 major sections — 2 for tracking estimated and actual expenses according to the previously mentioned 4 criteria and the cost variance between them and 1 for tracking your contingency costs and expenses. The top of each section shows the totals.

At the very end of the table, there’s a section that shows your allocated budget, estimated costs, and actual costs for each individual task side-by-side for a quick budget overview. 

The majority of this template is automated — it automatically calculates the total estimated costs, actual costs, variances, and totals. The template is also customizable to fit your specific project’s needs. 

You’ll find further instructions on the use and customization of this template inside the template itself.

🔽 Download free Excel project budget template

💡 PLAKY PRO TIP

Want to improve your budgeting skills? Try these 6 different budgeting methods and learn how to create your own ideal project budget:

• Best Project Management Budgeting Methods to Try

Use Plaky to help you track your expenses and finish projects faster.

#4: Project dashboard template in Excel — single project

The dashboard project management template lets you track tasks, subtasks, priority, status, assignee, department, managers, progress, start/end dates, duration, planned and actual budget, and the number of days until the deadline.

The first thing you’ll see when you open the template is the dashboard that showcases all the data. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t change any of the data directly in the dashboard. The dashboard will update based on the data you input in the actual project tracking table located in the second sheet within the file you download.

At the top of the dashboard, you’ll find charts showing the overall progress of your project and budget status in percentages, a comparison of the planned and spent budget, and a breakdown of all your tasks based on their status.

The table underneath shows the same data as your actual project tracking table but with a breakdown of your progress, budget, and actual costs per task, as well as a Gantt chart reflecting the project timeline.

You can filter all the data in the table using the dropdown menu within each column or using the buttons to the left of the table. When you do this, both the Gantt chart and the bars and charts at the top of the page will reflect the filtered data.

🔽 Download free Excel project dashboard template for single project management

#5: Project dashboard template in Excel — multiple projects

The Excel dashboard template for managing multiple projects is the same as the template mentioned above, but instead of tracking tasks and subtasks, you can track projects and the tasks that belong to them.

🔽 Download free Excel  project dashboard template for multiple project management

#6: Issue tracker template in Excel

The issue tracker template helps you keep track of all the issues/bugs that appear, their severity, priority and status, as well as classification, frequency, when they were first reported, who is assigned to them, when they are due, steps to reproduce them, and much more.

Above the template, you’ll find a table that shows all your risks and which category they belong to and how many of them there are.

This issue tracker template is meant for people who want to track and manage their project issues in more detail. If you want a simpler version of this template, check out the next template!

🔽 Download free Excel issue tracker template

For more issue tracking templates for Google Docs, Sheets, and Microsoft Word, as well as some recommendations for great issue tracking templates different software have to offer, check out this blog post:

• 10 Bug Tracking Templates for Immaculate QA Reporting

#7: Simple issue tracker template in Excel

For those of you who don’t require too much detail in your issue tracking, here’s a simple issue tracker template with all the essential information and none of the fluff.

This free Excel project management template lets you track the progress of your issues from the moment they appear until the moment they are closed, prioritize them, and assign them to team members to start working on them.

As it’s a very useful feature to have, this template also contains a table showing the breakdown of all your project issues according to their status and priority.

🔽 Download free Excel simple issue tracker template

Manage and resolve issues faster — Improve planning, finish tasks, and create more free time for yourself, with Plaky.

#8: Project task list template in Excel

The simple project task list template is formatted as a table that lets you track individual tasks within one project.

This template has columns for tracking progress, assignee, start and due dates, as well as color-coded priority and status dropdown lists. The template also tracks whether the project is at risk and how many days are left until the due date (or how many days the task is behind schedule). 

🔽 Download free Excel task list template

#9: Advanced project task tracking template in Excel

The advanced project task tracking template lets you track the individual subtasks as well as the estimated and actual cost for each subtask in addition to the basic metrics tracked in the simple project task list template.

🔽 Download free Excel advanced project task tracker template

Free task management software

Streamline your business — Improve planning, align teams, finish tasks with Plaky.

#10: Multiple project tracker template in Excel

Similar to the advanced project task tracker template, the multiple project tracking template lets you track the planned and actual budget, but instead of tasks and subtasks, you can track projects and the tasks within those projects.

All of these free Excel project management templates support an unlimited number of tasks/rows in the table and contain a filter option for each column. With this, you can easily get a preview of the data for a specific task, project, team, person, date, or a range of dates, extract charts, and much more.

🔽 Download free Excel multiple project tracker template

Before you start tracking your project tasks, you first have to create a project charter, define your scope, and set major milestones. We have templates for that too!

• What Is A Project Charter? Example + Free Template Included
• What Is Scope in Project Management (+Free Template)
• What Are Project Milestones? (+ Examples and Free Template)

#11: Work breakdown structure (WBS) template in Excel (list format)

This work breakdown structure (WBS) template is a simple WBS in list format. All you need to do is select the WBS level of the entry (a number between 1 and 5). Once you do this, the WBS code, as well as the indentations in the “Name” column will automatically update to match it.

You may use the WBS code for each entry to link to a corresponding entry in a separate WBS Dictionary.

🔽 Download free Excel work breakdown structure template — list

#12: Work breakdown structure (WBS) template in Excel (table format)

Since there are many ways to create a WBS, I also created a second work breakdown structure template in table form. 

In addition to automatic indentations and WBS code numbering based on the designated WBS level, this template contains further information about each entry. 

Specifically, it contains the description, predecessors, start/end dates, work days, resources, and cost columns in case you prefer to add more information to your WBS.

🔽 Download free Excel work breakdown structure template — table

#13: Risk management template in Excel

The most prominent feature of the risk management template is that it allows you to select the risk probability and severity from a dropdown list. When you do this, the table will automatically show you the overall project risk rate based on the predetermined risk assessment matrix.

Additionally, the template will automatically count the number of risks in each of the 25 categories in the risk matrix.

Other than this, the table contains 18 columns in total that track the Risk name, ID, and category, dates when the risk was discovered and when it’s expected to appear, the risk owner, status, expected monetary losses, mitigation strategies, and more, to help you stay on top of all your negative project risks.

🔽 Download free Excel risk management template

Risk management or RAID log? Do you know the difference? Do you need both? Find out what experts have to say in this guide, and get a free RAID log template!

• What is a RAID log? Benefits, Examples, & Free Template

Take control of your projects — detect issues, track changes, and identify opportunities, with Plaky.

#14: SWOT analysis template in Excel

The SWOT analysis template is a simple, non-automated template that lets you see your project’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats laid out in a clean and organized way.

The template also contains an action plan table where you can create a quick list of the most important tasks that require your immediate attention based on your SWOT analysis.

🔽 Download free Excel SWOT analysis template

#15: Competitor SWOT analysis template in Excel

In case you’d like to see how you compare to your competitors, you can download our competitor SWOT analysis template. 

This template is also a simple, non-automated list, but it will give you a side-by-side, high-level overview of your current status compared to your top competitors.

🔽 Download free Excel competitor SWOT analysis template

If you need a more general task list template that will deal with the granular daily or weekly tasks, definitely check out our to-do list template collection:

• 20 Free To-Do List Templates (Customizable & Printable)

#16: Project status report template in Excel

The project status report template gives you a one-page overview of your current project status that you can send to your stakeholders for their weekly or monthly updates.

According to Michelle M. Campbell , PMP, Certified Scrum Product Owner and ScrumMaster®, project status reports should be as concise and comprehensive as possible.

“ While aesthetics is helpful on a status report, it is more important to have the informative essentials that will guide the reader to arrive at a comprehensive, but concise understanding of the state of the project .” 

Following her advice, I did my best to make this status report template as short and informative as possible, but couldn’t help adding some extra flair.

The template contains a field for a brief project summary, a table where you can provide a rundown of your project deliverables , along with their RAG status and a short explanation, and a field for describing your most prominent project risk or issue at the moment.

The charts and fields on the right show your overall project progress in percentages, along with your top 3 recent achievements and plans for the future.

The template currently has fields for future plans by quarter, but you can easily rename the fields if you prefer to provide shorter-term plans.

Since this particular template is only a status report and doesn’t contain a project tracking table from which charts can pull information, you’ll have to manually update the progress doughnut chart.

🔽 Download free Excel project status report template

If you’d like to know what else Michelle M. Campbell had to say about project status reports and learn how not to make them boring, check out this guide:

• What Is A Project Status Report?

Excel is powerful but complicated — try Plaky instead

Microsoft Excel is undoubtedly a powerful project management tool but only if you know how to use it. Moreover, it has one other fatal flaw — it’s a static tool that makes project communication and cross-team collaboration needlessly difficult.

On the other hand, Plaky is an intuitive and user-friendly project management tool that lets you organize and customize your project management to fit your unique workflow. 

Plaky lets you create a virtual office, with a separate space for each department and separate boards within those spaces for each subteam.

This lets everyone have their own nook where they can focus on their tasks and effectively manage their part of the work, while also being able to hop onto another space if they need to collaborate with a different department.

With this layout, the entire organization, including the project manager, sponsor, and project stakeholders, can stay up to date with the changes, without the need for frequent reports and presentations.

On top of this, Plaky also has a library of free project management templates you can use to manage your projects if you don’t want to build your own project workflow from scratch. All the templates are customizable and editable, you can tweak them to fit your needs or use them as is — your choice.

So, with Plaky, managing your projects will go smoothly and your entire team will have access to the necessary project information. It will also enable seamless cross-team collaboration while making sure that everything always works as intended. If that sounds great, give Plaky a trial run . 

Connect all your teams to one central management platform with unlimited users, spaces, boards, and items, all on the free plan! Or check out Plaky’s pricing plans to unlock more robust administrative options.

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Alternative to Monday and Asana for managing projects, teams, and all types of work.

The Top Project Plan Templates

By Kate Eby | June 8, 2018 (updated March 15, 2024)

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A project plan is an essential part of any project manager’s toolkit. While it can be tempting to get started on completing tasks as soon as possible, taking the time to map out your strategy can help you save money and resources. Your project will constantly be shifting, and you need a project plan template that can keep up. 

But, with so many available templates, how do you know which one to use? We’ve sorted through them all and found the best project plan templates in Excel and Microsoft Word. We’ll explain the different types of templates and when you should use each one. We’ll also provide a selection of free downloads of project plan templates in Microsoft Word and Excel. You’ll learn what a project plan is and how to make one from scratch in Excel. Or you can try a pre-built template in Smartsheet, a project management platform that empowers you to efficiently manage projects with real-time collaboration and process automation.

Project Plan Templates

A project plan template can be as simple or as complex as you need, depending on your style of project management and the requirements of your project planning . You can choose to include a static timeline or a dynamic Gantt chart, and focus on action items or business goals.

A project plan is most often used in a project management context, with Gantt charts to plan and report progress as the project changes. The main difference between a project plan and a work plan is the Gantt chart, making it a more integrated project plan complete with a way to track tasks against timelines. A Gantt chart is a dynamic, horizontal bar chart to visualize a project schedule and is an important asset to share with stakeholders to communicate project status. This type of template caters toward project managers who are managing larger projects with many people.

‌   Download Excel Template   Try Free Smartsheet Template   ‌

Project plan templates, complete with a Gantt chart, are used most often in instance like construction project management , or where there’s a need for a more agile project plan . Sometimes, people prefer to use  project management software to create more complex project plans, enabling them to easily update and manage their plans with greater flexibility.

Simple Project Plan Template

Track project details, manage timelines, and visualize how your project is progressing with this simple project plan template. Document all key details, like task start and end dates, resources needed, and budget details, with this comprehensive, easy-to-use template.

‌   Download Word Template   Try Free Smartsheet Template   ‌

Work Plan Templates

A work plan template is designed to break down your large project goals into smaller, actionable steps. This kind of template outlines what needs to be done, by whom, and when. It also includes a timeline to help set expectations and improve transparency, keeping everyone on the same page about deliverables and deadlines. A work plan template is best for larger teams working on big projects with many tasks and due dates.

Project Implementation Plan Template

Ensure you don’t miss or overlook any key steps and that all your bases are covered as you move through your project. Use this professionally designed template to keep key internal and external stakeholders, clients, and upper management in the loop on all phases of the project.

‌   Download Word Template

Action Plan Templates

An action plan lists all the steps that must be taken to achieve a specific goal. The template includes information about the actions that need to happen, the people that will complete them, due dates, priority, and status. While an action plan and work plan are similar, an action plan focuses on goals, whereas a work plan template focuses on phases of tasks that are usually listed in chronological order. An action plan template is best for individual use or by smaller teams.

Project Action Plan Template

Establish the main goals of your project, identify the actions needed to achieve those goals, and assign a person to be responsible for each task with this complete project action plan template. Assign priority to tasks, view status, and list start and end dates to keep your project moving forward.

Business Plan Templates

A business plan template highlights business goals and the plan for achieving them. It focuses on your business’ future and how you intend to reach your objectives. Business plans are much more strategic than a work plan or action plan and often include a vision statement, business profile, economic assessment, and more. A business plan is most appropriate for people who are starting their own business, growing their business, or seeking outside help.

Get started quickly with project plan templates in Smartsheet

Your projects may be complex, but your project management tool doesn’t have to be. Combine a rich set of features with flexibility, simplicity, and ease of use to deliver projects quickly. Try Smartsheet free for 30 days and get access to hundreds of pre-built, easily customizable templates to jumpstart your project. After your trial, you can choose the plan that best suits your needs or opt for the Free Plan as a no-cost alternative.

Try Smartsheet for Free

What is a project plan?

A project plan is designed to deliver the intended scope of a project, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and track planning assumptions and decisions. It is a living document that can include a stakeholder list, a scope statement, a project schedule, schedule and cost baselines, baseline management plans, communication plan, and it can change over the course of a project. It is worth noting that a project plan is not just a project timeline, although that is an important component of the plan.

You should always create a project plan before starting a new project. Start with what you want to achieve from the project and break it down into the things you need to do in order to accomplish the goal. Then, once you have a high-level plan of all the things that need to be done, you can think about timing, budget, resources, and more.

At the very least, a project plan should answer the following questions about a project:

• Why? - Why are we starting this project? What is the problem that this project will address or solve?
• What? - What are we working on? What are the major deliverables and goals?
• Who? - Who will be involved in the project and what will be their responsibilities?
• When? - When should the project start and end? What are the milestones?

What to include in a project plan

Project plans differ, but they all contain similar information. In your project plan, include an executive summary, project goals, milestones, deliverables, an estimated timeline, potential risks, and budget details. We’ve outlined some common topics covered by a project plan below:

To learn how to create your own project plan, check out our comprehensive guide to project planning.

• Executive Summary: The executive summary should summarize the information contained within your project plan onto a single page for easy reading.
• Project Goals: Outline the end goals of your project and how you will measure its success.
• Target Audience: Identify the target audience of your project, or who it will affect and who will use the results.
• Key Responsibilities: Outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member.
• Key Tasks and Deliverables: Highlight the most important tasks and deliverables throughout the project, with estimated deadlines.
• Available or Needed Resources: List the resources you will need to secure to complete the project.
• Risk Analysis and Mitigation Plan: Identify possible risks and put a plan in place to manage them before they become problems.
• Key Milestones: Identify the key milestones you will use to measure progress.
• Proposed Project Timeline: Create an estimated timeline for tasks, milestones, and deliverables.
• Costs and Budget Details: Create an estimated timeline for tasks, milestones, and deliverables.
• Contingency Plans: Include any contingency plans for project elements that don’t pan out as planned.
• Communication Strategies: Create a communication plan for reference throughout the project’s lifecycle.
• Evaluation Strategy: Determine how you will evaluate the successes and failures of your project.

To learn more, check out our comprehensive  Project Management Guide .

What is the purpose of a project plan?

A project plan is one of the most important ingredients for a successful project. It is used to document and communicate expectations, to control schedule and delivery, and to calculate and manage risks. In general, it acts as a roadmap for everyone involved in the project.

Here are the four biggest benefits of a project plan:

• Improves communication : By outlining your whole plan for everyone to see, stakeholders can provide feedback early in the process if things are going in the right direction. A project plan also helps facilitate expectation management by letting you update milestones and timelines as the project progresses.
• Increases transparency : With a project plan, stakeholders and team members know exactly where to look to get information every step of the way. Expectations and the project timeline are clearly defined, so everyone is on the same page about priorities and objectives.
• Increases organization : Many projects have dozens of tasks, dependencies, and milestones, and it can be hard to track how everything is progressing. A project plan makes you think through the timing of each activity and how it affects the rest of the project. You always know how much time to spend on each task and how many things you can accomplish at the same time.

The project planning process

The project planning process involves thoroughly mapping out your project from start to finish. At this time, determine your goals, estimate a timeline for key deliverables, create a budget projection, and assess your risks before launching your project.

• Concept and Initiation: Start by determining the overall concept of your project and how you plan to complete it.
• Roadmap Creation: In this phase, determine a rough timeline of the tasks necessary to complete your project.
• Deliverable Listing: Each project must have specific deliverables, which you should identify during the beginning portion of your planning phase, so each team member is aware of what is expected of them.
• Project Milestone Identification: Figure out specific points in the project that you consider to be key milestones. These milestones can consist of certain tasks that you complete, a budget target that you reach, or a team that you assemble.
• Budget Creation: Creating a predetermined budget is one of the most important parts of a project plan. You should adhere to that budget as your project moves forward. This way, you can allocate specific resources and budgets to certain tasks, without exceeding spending projections.
• Team Member Identification: As with any project, you’ll need to assemble a team of people to implement the project. Work with others to target the specific people who will be most helpful in carrying out the project.
• Risk Assessment: You must identify all potential risks or threats to your project, including those that could cause budget issues, project delays, and more. List all those potential risks, and detail how you plan to mitigate the issues if they do occur.
• Project Communication: Once you’ve outlined the key components of your project, you need to communicate these plans and goals to the greater team — including key stakeholders and any external parties. Develop a way to appropriately and efficiently communicate the project plans to everyone involved.
• Project Launch: At this point, your project should be ready to launch. Ensure that you’ve covered all your bases and outlined all the details before starting. Then, you’re set to begin.

How to create a project plan in Excel

Here are some step-by-step instructions for making a project plan in Excel. You’ll first create the table with your project information, then we’ll show you how to make your project timeline.

1. Add Headers to the Table 

First, you’ll need to add some headers to your table.

• Leave the first row in your spreadsheet blank. On the second row, type in the headers. In this example, we’re using Tasks, Responsible, Start, End, Days , and Status . You could also add more headers for extra granularity, like Budget, Cost , and more. 
• Highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon to center the text in the headers.
• To format the headers for proper spacing, highlight all the text you just typed and on the Home tab, in the Cells group, click Format . Select Column Width and set the width for around 15-20 so you have enough space to enter in your project information.

2. Add Your Project Information

• Start with the Task column and enter the tasks for your project plan. You can enter as many or as few tasks as you want. To visually organize your project plan, we recommend adding a title for each group of tasks or each phase. In this example, we use Prerequisites, Initiation, Development, Operations and Launch .
• Then, enter the person responsible for each task and the start and end dates.
• To automatically calculate the number in the Days column, click on a cell in the Days column and type =, then click the End date cell, type the minus (-) symbol, then click the Start date cell. Click enter. Drag the bottom right-hand corner of this cell down the entire column and the rest of the values will be automatically calculated for you with this formula.
• Enter the status of each task. We use Complete, In progress, Overdue , or Not started .
• All the information should now be in your table, but you’ll notice the spacing is off depending on the length of your text. To fix this, highlight all your information and in the Cells group, click Format . Select Autofit Column Width to automatically adjust the column width to your content.
• To center your content, highlight the text and in the Alignment group, click the center icon.

3. Add Colors to Convey Project Status at a Glance

It’s easy to customize your project plan with colors and visual hierarchy. By changing the styling and font sizes, you can highlight key information and convey project status at a glance.

• To change font color, click on the cell with the text you want to change. In the Home tab, select the color you want from the color drop-down list.
• To change the background color of one or more cells, select the cell(s) you want to change. Click the paint bucket icon and select the fill color.
• To format fonts, select one or more cells. In the Home tab, you can change the font type, font size, and make the title bold, italicized, or underlined. 

We recommend adding a background color to the main header and to each group or phase of tasks, as well as your target completion date or launch date. You can also change the font color of in the Status column to reflect current progress (in this example, red represents Overdue , green represents Complete , etc).

4. Create the Project Plan Timeline

You’ve already added all your project information to the table, now it’s time to make the corresponding project timeline. Including a timeline in your project plan will help set expectations and increase transparency, keeping everyone aligned around priorities and due dates.

Add and Format Dates

• On the same row as your table headers, in the next available column, enter the two dates of your project timeline. Then, hold down Shift, select the two dates, and drag the bottom right-hand corner across the row until you’ve reached your end date.
• If you’d like to change the format of dates, select all the dates and right-click. Select Format Cells .
• In the pop-up box, select Date under the Category section and select the date type you’d like.
• You’ll notice that the cells are very wide. To make the timeline more compact, select all the dates, and select a smaller font size. In this example, we’ve selected font size 9.
• Then, select all the dates again and in the Cells group, click Format . Select Autofit Column Width to automatically adjust the column width to the dates.

Add Colors to Make the Project Timeline

• First, extend the same background colors and font formatting from your table to your timeline.

• Now, you’ve created a type of matrix. You have a row that corresponds to each task, and on the right-hand side, on your timeline, you can simply fill in the cells that represent each task’s start and end date. To do this, select a cell (or more than one cell) and click the paint bucket icon. Select the color you’d like to use.

5. Final Touches

• To add grid lines to the project plan, select the entire project plan, both the table and the timeline, and in the Font group, click the borders icon. Select All Borders .   
• If you want to add more project information, select the first column, right-click and select Insert > Entire Row . Repeat until you have 8 empty rows.
• Then, in the first column, enter the following: Project Name, Project Manager, Project Deliverable, Start Date, End Date , and Overall Progress . Then, fill in the corresponding information.

How to create a project plan in Smartsheet

Smartsheet’s pre-built project template with a Gantt chart makes it even easier to organize tasks, foster communication, and improve transparency. In this template, duration is automatically calculated for you and the interactive Gantt chart lets you drag-and-drop task bars to adjust dates. Smartsheet’s powerful collaboration features let you have discussions directly in the project plan, attach files, and set alerts and reminders.

Here’s how to use a project plan template in Smartsheet:

1. Select a Project Template

• Go to Smartsheet.com and login to your account ( or start a free 30-day trial )
• From the Home tab, click Create and choose Browse All Solutions .
• Type “ Project with Gantt Timeline ” in the Search box or select Projects from the category list.
• Click on the  Project with Gantt Timeline  tile, then click the blue Use  button.
• Name your template, choose where to save it, and click the Ok button.

2. List Your Project Information

A pre-made template will open, with sample content filled in for reference and the sections, sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks already formatted. With Smartsheet, it’s easy to add or delete columns depending on the scope of your project.

Simply right-click on a column and select Insert Column Left/Insert Column Right to add a column or Delete Column to remove a column.

• Add your tasks under the Task Name column. You’ll notice that the hierarchy is already formatted for you. So, be sure to enter the project phase name or group name to the Section 1, Section 2, and Section 3 fields (this is called the parent row. For more information about hierarchy, click here )
• Enter your tasks and sub-tasks under the parent rows.
• On the left side of each row, you can attach files directly to a task (perfect for attaching stakeholder lists, budgets, and more) or start a discussion about a certain item.

3. Add Start and End Dates

• Add start and end dates for each task. If you click and drag either end of the task bars in the Gantt chart, Smartsheet will automatically adjust the dates in your table.
• Click a cell in the either date column.
• Click the calendar icon and choose a date. You can also manually enter a date in the cell.

4. Enter % Complete and Assigned To Information

The % Complete and Assigned To columns provide more information about your project and improve transparency by allowing team members to see who is doing what and the status of each task.

On the Gantt chart, the thin bars inside the task bars represent the percentage of work complete for each task.

• In the % Complete column, enter the percentage of work complete for each task. Enter a whole number and Smartsheet will automatically add the percentage sign. 
• In the Assigned To column, choose a name from your contact list (in the drop-down menu) or manually enter a name.

Customize your project plan in Smartsheet

With just a couple clicks, you can customize the appearance of your project timeline.

1. Customize Fonts and Colors in Your Project Plan

• To change the font type and size, or bold, italicize or underline text, click the cell with the text you want to change. On the left-hand toolbar, you will find all the text formatting options.
• To change the background color of a row, click the far left gray cell to highlight the entire row. Then, click the paint bucket icon and select the color you’d like to use.

2. Change the Colors in Your Gantt Chart

• Right-click on a task bar and click Color Settings .
• Select the color you’d like to use from the color palette.
• If you want to apply the same color to more than one task bar, click the bars while holding down the Shift key. Then, release the Shift button, right-click on any of the selected bars, and click Color Settings .

Discover a better way to manage your project plans with Smartsheet

From simple task management and project planning to complex resource and portfolio management, Smartsheet helps you improve collaboration and increase work velocity -- empowering you to get more done. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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