A Comprehensive Guide on Free Excel Templates for Startups

In the last few days, I was busy researching different options that would help young business startups get up and running their new venture and therefore we didn’t publish our weekly free excel template last week.

But to make up for what we missed last week, I’ve come up with a thorough post about using free MS Excel templates readily available on the market, and some free MS Word templates too for that matter, which will help you pave the way for your seed to grow, bloom and survive in an increasingly competitive market.

According to a recent report by the US Small Business Administration, there are around 28 million small businesses in the US that create a proud 64 percent of new private sector jobs every year.

Every second, 3 startups are born worldwide (Three Startups per Second!) that adds up to a staggering 100 million new businesses every year! But unfortunately, about 90 percent of them will fail. Despite the high risks of investing in startups, in the US alone, the sheer number of 48.3 billion USD in venture capital is invested in startups every year.

If you like to know more about startup statistics, have a look at this article from mashable.com with a great infographic that helps to visualize the whole subject.

In order to become one of those selected few successful 10 percent, careful planning, and adequate tools are required to forecast your income and expenses, come up with well-thought business plans that help to get a firm grasp of the risks and opportunities and receive the loans and venture capital you deserve.

Regardless of the business you plan to launch, it is vital to have an estimate of the business startup expenses before jumping into it. Whether a smaller business, a bigger franchise, a restaurant, an Internet business or home business, first-time owners may be surprised by the total costs of a new adventure. It is common for new business owners to underestimate the summed up costs of starting a new business, making them vulnerable to the risks of being underfunded.

To help you to overcome this common mistake that could lead to a disastrous outcome, we suggest using the free Business Startup Costs Template for MS Excel that helps you to calculate the total costs of setting up a business and running it safely.

It can be argued that it is not possible to create such a template because every business is a little bit different and has different models and drivers, but this Excel template helps us to overcome these complexities by pre-populating some categories that are very common among many home-based or small businesses.

Usually, as an entrepreneur, you are required to come up with a detailed breakdown of your total startup cost as part of a business plan, loan or grant application.

With a little bit of research, I found this MS Word business plan template that is specifically geared toward startups. Here is a particularly useful gallery of different business planning, financing, marketing and sales and management templates, both in Excel and Word formats. It is neatly structured and all the MS templates are free to download. As an added bonus, the website offers free webinars about developing business plans, starting businesses and more by real experts who aren’t just academics but have many years of hands-on experience in the same industry.

As you add the expenses and costs in the aforementioned Business Startup Costs Template, you’ll easily learn whether you have the adequate funding to start your new business. Once you’ve secured enough investment to pull the trigger and launch your spaceship towards the vast ocean of new startups, this free Excel template will help you to track the actual expenditures and keep the costs under control.

As your business grows and you need to dive into more details about your expenses and income, you may like to use these free business budget Excel templates or these financial statement templates. These 2 links are actually leading to gallery-like pages that include more than 10 financial statement and 3 business budget templates. The wide spectrum of free Excel templates in these 2 galleries encompasses interesting subjects like a balance sheet, an income statement,  a break-even analysis, a 12-month business budget and more.

Another thing that startups normally neglect is financial forecasting and modeling. Admittedly, finance is a little bit complicated and forecasting the future is usually a futile endeavor. It won’t do for a startup to invest good money in hiring finance experts and state of the art tools when it is still trying to cover the financial base. And isn’t it the risks and potential benefits that make a startup, well a startup?
The answer is, yes and no. Entrepreneurs should be able to have a forecast and financial model easily, quickly and without getting too complicated. Fortunately, there are free tools out there, like this free MS Excel template, which help you to abide by the 80/20 rule. These tools are comprehensive enough to get the big picture but also relatively easy to accommodate one’s beginner or intermediate financial understandings and avoid falling into geeky quagmires.

Additional Resources and Material

If you are in need of additional readings, tools, and resources for launching, and hopefully keeping your new business, here are some more links and information to digest. Have fun!

Startup Costs For Different Businesses

  • At startupnation.com you’ll learn by example. It’ll show you the costs that come with a new service business.

Business Startup Loans and Grants

  • Small Business Loans and Grants – Here at the US Small Business Administration office you’ll find tons of materials about loans and grants for small businesses.

How to Start a Business

  • Business Plan Software – This is a comprehensive software that helps you put together a business plan. The software will help you through the process step by step and entails hundreds of sector-specific examples.
  • Writing a Business Plan  – General information by the SBA on how to write a solid business plan that sells.
  • Starting and Managing a Business – General and useful information about how to start and manage a business from the SBA.

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