Free Business Budget Templates
A small business budget template is essential for managing your business’s finances. It can help you keep track of your cash flow, plan for the future and highlight potential funding needs. If you’re looking for a free small business budget template, one of the following options may be a good fit.
Why you need a business budget
A business budget template can make it easier to manage your business’s finances. More specifically, it can help you:
- Allocate funds for different business goals
- Streamline business expenses
- Plan for financing options and debt repayment
- Build a savings cushion for unexpected expenses
- Track business cash flow and curb overspending
| Template Source | Best For | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Excel | Complex budgeting and formulas | .xlsx spreadsheet |
| Google Sheets | Real-time collaboration | In web browser |
| SCORE | Template variety and small business resources | .xlsx spreadsheets |
| Smartsheets | Long-term planning | Cloud-based software |
| Budget sheets from accounting software | Linking a small business budget to accounting data | Varies but can include Excel, Google Sheets or cloud-based software |
Microsoft Excel free budget templates
Best for: Complex budgeting and formulas
Excel has been around a long time, and most people know how to use its basic functions. If you’re a regular Microsoft Office user, there are several Excel business budget templates available. Using Excel for the web can allow you to share your budget with your team and collaborate in real time.
Excel’s Copilot uses AI to streamline certain budgeting tasks. For example, it can allow you to compare different time periods and automatically review cost management calculations. Some free templates include:
- Business monthly budget: Basic monthly budget that allows you to compare your projected business costs to your actual expenses.
- Business expense budget: Comes formatted with typical business categories like insurance and advertising costs — and generates customized charts and graphs.
- Small business cash flow projection: Allows you to focus on the inflow and outflow of cash over a specific period of time.
- Small business income statement: Highlights your business’s annual revenue and expenses.
- Small business sales invoice: Template for billing customers and vendors that can be customized with your business’s logo.
- Startup expenses: Estimates startup business costs and includes tips for small business owners who are at the starting line.
- Vertex42 templates: Vertex42 offers a basic business budget template for Excel, as well as a 12-month business template that’s also compatible with Google Sheets.
- Capterra business budget template: Business software resource Capterra offers a free template that includes space for your business’s income sources, fixed costs and variable costs. The template also shows the difference between your estimated income and expenses versus the actual numbers.
Google Sheets free budget templates
Best for: Real-time collaboration
If you prefer using Google Drive for your business, a Google Sheets small business budget template may be a good option. It’s especially useful for small business owners who want to collaborate with their team. Authorized editors can make changes and update a live budget as they go. You can also sync your business budget to other important files you may have on your Google Drive.
For extra support, Google Sheets offers Gemini AI capabilities. That can make it easy to generate formulas, create tables and complete other complex tasks. Free budgeting templates include:
- Annual business budget by Intuit Quickbooks: Available in the Google Sheets template gallery, this spreadsheet has dedicated tabs for business income and expenses. It also provides a basic 12-month financial summary complete with a customized graph.
- Monday.com budget template. Project management company Monday.com offers a streamlined budget template that can be used to keep your cash flow on track.
- Zapier’s budget templates. Software company Zapier offers a number of free Google Sheets templates. That includes a startup budget template and a cash flow budget template.
Google Sheets also offers free templates in its template gallery for invoices, weekly timesheets, expense reports, purchase orders and employee shift schedules.
SCORE free budget templates
Best for: Template variety and small business resources
SCORE is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting small business owners through a network of mentors, educational courses and other resources. It’s also a resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), which helps deliver most of its content for free.
Instead of offering one master budget template, SCORE provides a variety of free financial templates for small businesses. That includes templates to create:
SCORE also offers a business loan estimator tool, as well as marketing and sales templates and management templates.
Smartsheet free budget templates
Best for: Long-term planning
Smartsheet, a cloud-based project management platform, offers a wide range of free business budget templates you can use with Excel or Google Sheets. That includes a:
- Basic business budget template
- 12-month business budget template
- Business budget template for multiple products
- Startup budget template
Smartsheet also offers a template that’s designed to measure your business’s overall financial health on an annual basis.
Accounting software budget templates
Best for: Combining your financial data
If you’re already using accounting software, check to see if it comes with a free business budget template. If so, it could make it easy to integrate your budget into your other business records. The following accounting software programs include budgeting templates:
- QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks offers a free business budget template. Opting for a paid plan could also help you automate your bookkeeping.
- Xero: This popular accounting software program offers a free income statement template and balance sheet template.
- FreshBooks: FreshBooks offers a variety of free financial templates. That includes a general ledger, as well as templates to create a profit and loss statement, expense report, simple balance sheet, billing statement and bank reconciliation.
- Zoho Books: This accounting program has a free budgeting tool that allows you to analyze your business’s income, operating expenses, profit margins and more.
Free budget templates for startups
Best for: Startups
If your business is in startup mode, you’ll want to set realistic expectations for your finances. That can clarify your funding needs and help your new business thrive.
Industry-specific business budget templates
Best for: Creating budgets that accommodate the nuances of your business
Most business owners can customize a basic budget template, but an industry-specific template can help you save time. It can also call out expenses you may not have considered, like marketing, professional services and other indirect costs.
Budget templates for restaurants
These templates can break down expenses related to food, drinks, utilities, wages, employee benefits and more. They can also clarify the difference between your estimated income and expenses versus reality.
Budget templates for food trucks
With a food truck business, you’ll want to start with a strong budget. These free templates account for permits, licenses, food, fuel, marketing and more.
Budget templates for Etsy shops
An Etsy shop is run like any other online business — in addition to managing inventory and fulfilling orders, you’ll need to keep track of your finances. That includes your income, expenses, cash flow and taxes.
Budget templates for freelancers
Freelancers might prefer project-based budgets that can be customized for each new contract. The following free resources may be helpful if you’re a business of one.
Paid budget templates
You might explore a paid option if you want a more detailed budgeting template — or one that’s tailored to your industry. Asking around among your peers and mentors can be helpful. With that said, here are some paid options to consider.
- A customized business budget created by a financial advisor or CPA
- A business budget template from Etsy
- Notion’s small business budget template
AI tools can take some of the legwork out of creating a small business budget. Templates from Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets already have built-in AI tools to help you build dynamic spreadsheets with more complex designs and functions. But using AI to build your business budget from scratch can be tricky. Because many of these platforms use inputs for training, putting sensitive financial information into a public AI model could open you up to risk in the event of a data breach. These platforms can also make mistakes, so you’ll need to fact check your numbers and calculations.
How to make your own business budget
Another option is to create your own customized business budget. This can be a live document that you track and edit on an ongoing basis. Here are the steps to build an effective budget:
- Choose a budgeting method: That might be an Excel spreadsheet or a new Google Sheets document. Choose whichever one you think will work best for you and your team.
- Update your expenses: Include every regular and irregular business expense. That may include things like maintenance costs and annual licensing fees. If your business has separate departments with their own budgets, add those expenses here too.
- Clarify your revenue: Where is your business income coming from? Clarify your revenue streams and make realistic projections of what’s to come.
- Subtract your expenses from your income: This should tell you if your business is profitable or running a deficit.
- Create sub-budgets: For example, you might build a separate budget that’s dedicated just to marketing. You can do the same for recruitment and specific projects. The final costs associated with these sub-budgets can be added to your master budget.
- Factor in your business goals: Start by looking at your balance sheet. This financial statement reflects current assets, liabilities and equity. Now think about your short- and long-term business goals and how they fit into your financial outlook. That can help you take action in a way that’s compatible with your budget.
- Automate as much as possible.
- Check in regularly.
- Make conservative income estimates.
- Save for emergencies and unexpected costs.
- Plan for future business goals.
- Be flexible and course-correct as needed.
Frequently asked questions
If you’re looking for a live document that allows team members to collaborate in real time, a Google Sheet might be the better option. However, business owners with complex financial needs might prefer a tried-and-true Excel sheet.
A business budget should include your revenue, income, expenses and business goals. Overlooking these details will likely lead to an incomplete financial picture for your business — the clearer you get here, the stronger your budget will be.
If a free template can get the job done, a plug-and-play option from Smartsheet, Excel or Google Sheets may be the way to go. But if you’re already using accounting software that has a free budget template, that might allow you to sync your financial data.
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