Downloadable Company Management Templates
Free company management templates to help you get started:
- Inventory tracking template with stock levels and valuations
- Customer order management template with status tracking
- Purchase order template for supplier management
- Customer database template with pricing and history
- Basic reporting templates for sales and inventory analysis
- Guidance on when spreadsheets need to be replaced with software
Starting to formalize your business operations but not ready to invest in full company management software? Templates provide structure for managing inventory, orders, customers, and purchasing in spreadsheets before graduating to integrated platforms. This guide provides downloadable company management templates designed for Australian small businesses, along with honest guidance about when templates work and when they become operational bottlenecks.
These templates are practical starting points for businesses with simple operations, limited SKUs, and single-person management. They help you move from informal processes (tracking everything in your head or on paper) to structured processes (documented in spreadsheets with formulas and data). But we’ll also be upfront: templates have significant limitations, and most growing businesses outgrow them within 6-12 months.
Use templates as stepping stones, not permanent solutions. They’re excellent for understanding what data you need to track and what workflows matter. When template limitations start costing you time or money, it’s time to upgrade to proper software like BSimple.
Inventory Management Template
An inventory management template tracks product details, stock levels, and inventory valuations in a structured spreadsheet format. Here’s what a functional template includes:
Product Master Sheet: One row per SKU with columns for product code, description, supplier, unit cost, sell price, reorder point, and current stock level. Use data validation for dropdowns (supplier names, categories) to keep data consistent. This becomes your single source of truth for product information.
Transactions Log: Record every stock movement—purchases, sales, adjustments—with date, SKU, quantity (positive for additions, negative for sales), transaction type, and notes. Use formulas to calculate running balances that automatically update your Product Master current stock levels based on this transaction history.
Stock Valuation: Calculate total inventory value by multiplying each SKU’s current stock by unit cost, then summing across all products. This gives you inventory asset value for financial reporting and insurance purposes.
Low Stock Report: Use conditional formatting to highlight SKUs where current stock falls below reorder point. This visual alert helps you identify what needs to be purchased without manually checking every product.
Supplier Purchase Sheet: When you need to order, filter products by supplier and reorder point to generate a purchase list. Manually create purchase orders from this filtered data.
This template works for businesses with under 100 SKUs and single-person inventory management. Beyond that scale, spreadsheets become error-prone and time-consuming. Our detailed guide on Excel inventory systems explains implementation and limitations.
Order Management and Customer Templates
Managing customer orders in spreadsheets requires templates that track order details, status, and fulfillment. Here’s the structure:
Customer Database: One sheet with customer details—name, contact info, delivery address, payment terms, custom pricing (if applicable), and credit limit. This becomes your customer master data referenced by order templates.
Order Entry Sheet: Each order gets a row with order number (sequential), customer name (dropdown from customer database), order date, requested delivery date, order status (pending/approved/fulfilled), total value, and notes. Detailed line items (which products, quantities) typically go on a separate detail sheet linked by order number.
Order Line Items: Separate sheet with one row per line item: order number, SKU (dropdown from product master), quantity, unit price, line total. Use VLOOKUP to pull product descriptions and standard pricing automatically. Sum line totals to get order total value.
Order Status Tracking: Use conditional formatting to color-code order status—red for pending review, yellow for approved awaiting fulfillment, green for fulfilled. This visual system helps identify which orders need attention.
Pick List Generation: Filter orders by status (approved, not yet fulfilled) and output a pick list showing which products to pick from inventory for all pending orders. This manual process replaces automated pick list generation in proper order management systems.
These order templates work temporarily but break down quickly: no automatic stock allocation (you can sell more than you have), no integration with inventory (stock doesn’t decrement with sales), no Xero integration (manual invoice creation). Learn about comprehensive order management systems that solve these limitations.
Purchase Order and Supplier Management Templates
Tracking what you’ve ordered from suppliers and when deliveries are expected requires purchase order templates:
Supplier Database: List suppliers with contact details, payment terms, minimum order quantities, typical lead times, and account numbers. This master data feeds into purchase order templates.
Purchase Order Template: Create individual PO documents with supplier details, PO number, date, expected delivery date, and line items (SKU, quantity, unit cost, line total). This gives suppliers clear orders while creating records for your receiving process.
Purchase Order Tracking: Separate sheet listing all POs with status tracking—PO number, supplier, date ordered, expected delivery, date received, total value, and notes. Filter by status to see what’s outstanding vs received. This helps prevent double-ordering and tracks supplier performance.
Receiving Worksheet: When stock arrives, log received quantities against the PO. Check received quantities against ordered quantities to identify shortages or overages. Once verified, manually update your inventory template to increment stock levels with the received quantities.
Supplier Performance Analysis: Track on-time delivery rates, pricing trends, and order accuracy by supplier. This data informs supplier relationship decisions—which suppliers are reliable vs problematic.
These templates require significant manual coordination: creating POs, checking receiving against POs, updating inventory manually, matching received stock to supplier invoices for accounts payable. Proper business management software automates these connections, eliminating manual steps and errors.
When Templates Become Liabilities: Time to Upgrade
Templates are useful for getting started, but there comes a point where spreadsheets cost more than software saves. Signs it’s time to upgrade:
Time Consumption: If you’re spending more than 5 hours per week on spreadsheet admin (data entry, updating formulas, generating reports, reconciling discrepancies), the time cost exceeds software subscription costs. At $50/hour opportunity cost, 5 hours weekly equals $13,000 annually—far more than business management software.
Error Frequency: When template errors cause real business problems—overselling stock because manual allocation failed, missing purchase orders because the tracking sheet was out of date, incorrect invoicing because pricing wasn’t updated everywhere—the financial impact of errors exceeds software costs.
Scaling Limitations: Templates work okay for 50 SKUs and 20 customers. At 200 SKUs and 100 customers, spreadsheets become unmanageable. File size grows, formulas slow down, data entry errors multiply. If you’re hitting these scaling walls, software becomes necessary for growth.
Multi-User Needs: Spreadsheets don’t support simultaneous editing well. If multiple people need access—warehouse staff, admin, bookkeeper—you’re dealing with version control nightmares. Cloud-based business management software enables real-time collaboration that templates can’t.
Integration Requirements: Want to integrate with Xero for automatic invoicing? Connect customer ordering portals? Sync ecommerce orders? Templates can’t integrate with other systems without extensive manual work. Software provides native integrations that eliminate manual data transfer.
The transition from templates to software is inevitable for growing businesses. The question is whether you upgrade proactively (when you’re ready) or reactively (after template limitations have already damaged operations through errors, lost sales, or excessive time waste).
Explore our comprehensive business management software solutions to understand what’s possible beyond templates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are company management templates free to use?
Yes, basic Excel templates for inventory, orders, customers, and purchasing are available free for Australian businesses. These provide structure for simple operations before investing in software. However, templates have significant limitations (manual processes, no integrations, single-user, error-prone) that make them suitable only for very small businesses or temporary use while evaluating proper software.
Can Excel templates handle inventory and order management?
Excel templates can handle basic inventory and order tracking for small operations (under 100 SKUs, 20-30 orders weekly, single-person management). Beyond that scale, templates become time-consuming and error-prone. They lack automatic stock allocation, real-time updates, multi-user access, Xero integration, and workflow automation that proper business management software provides.
What’s the difference between templates and business management software?
Templates are structured spreadsheets requiring manual data entry, formula maintenance, and disconnected processes. Business management software provides automation (orders decrement inventory automatically), integration (Xero invoicing, customer portals, ecommerce sync), multi-user collaboration, and workflow efficiency. Templates work temporarily for simple operations; software is necessary for growth and operational efficiency.
How long can I use templates before needing software?
Most businesses outgrow templates within 6-12 months of growth. Signs you need to upgrade: spending 5+ hours weekly on template admin, experiencing errors that cause stockouts or overselling, managing more than 100 SKUs, needing multiple people to access data simultaneously, or wanting integration with Xero/ecommerce platforms. Templates are stepping stones, not permanent solutions.
Do templates integrate with Xero for Australian businesses?
No, Excel templates don’t integrate with Xero. You’ll manually export data from templates and import to Xero, or manually create Xero invoices based on template data. This manual process is time-consuming and error-prone. Business management software like BSimple provides native Xero integration where orders automatically create invoices with correct GST, COGS, and line items.
Can templates support customer ordering portals?
No, Excel templates can’t provide customer-facing ordering portals. Customers must order via phone, email, or text, requiring you to manually enter orders into templates. Business management software provides customer portal functionality where customers log in to place orders directly, reducing your admin workload while improving customer convenience. This self-service capability is only possible with proper software, not templates.