Budgeting is an essential process for businesses across verticals. The success of your business depends on how efficiently you can plan a budget. It can affect your bottom line and make or break your business. A well-planned budget will help you achieve your organization’s financial goals, minimize the risk of overspending, and stay on top of the costs of running the business.
If you have no experience in planning a budget for the business, you’ve stumbled upon the right article for you. Check out the four free budget templates your organization must try and turn this proposal into an advantage to propel your organization forward.
Why Should You Use a Budget Template?
Before you can completely understand the value of using a budget template, you need to discover what information it contains.
Every budget template designed for business use contains:
- The total balance of your business accounts
- Projected sales
- Projected revenue
- Fixed costs of running the operations
- Variable costs (production expenses, electricity, gas, and other bills)
- Semi-variable costs (paid ads campaigns and wages)
- Profits
With a good template, you will be able to get valuable insights in a matter of seconds. You’ll be able to identify all your expenses, discover how much cash you have left every month, and use it to fuel business growth and expansion.
Most financial institutions will also ask you to submit your budget template if you apply for a loan or a credit line. The research also tells us that budgeting has a positive impact on the growth of sales revenues.
Now, since you understand the value of using a budget template, let’s take a look at the four free ones you can try.
PDFConverter Budget Template Suite
PDFConverter offers a complete budget template suite. The team behind the free templates decided to use Microsoft Excel. It’s one of the best office tools, and many organizations use it to store, organize, and analyze information. Don’t let the phrase “a complete budget template suite” confuse you. It stands for the collection of various templates you can use right out of the box.
PDFConverter offers templates to help you efficiently organize your company’s budget. If you want more control and additional insights, you can use their Rolling Business Budget and Forecast Template, Cash Flow Budget Report Template, or Capital Budgeting Template.
Business.com Budget Template With Monthly Actuals
Business.com Budget Template is also one of the best free budget templates. Unlike PDFConverter, it runs on Google Sheets in the cloud. However, you can download a copy on your local storage anytime you want. Some users value the opportunity to work on the go, though.
It comes with actionable tips and instructions. It’s very easy to use, and you will be able to master it even if you don’t have any technical experience. The template enables you to compare your annual and monthly budget to monthly actuals. The report tells you what you are doing right and points out areas that need improvement.
Capterra’s Budget Template With an Overview
Capterra’s Free Budget Template has been around since 2015. It’s one of the most comprehensive free budgeting tools. It’s built-in Microsoft Excel and comes with many useful features to help you plan your budget and assess its performance. The template has a dedicated tab for the weekly, monthly and annual budgets. It also comes with the overview tab you can use to instantly get insights.
The creators did an excellent job delivering step by step instructions to follow. You can find the instructions in the first tab when you open the template. The monthly reports are particularly useful as they tell you whether you are reaching your financial goals. If you go off the course, the template will tell you your exact financial loss and how it reflects your yearly profit.
Intuit Quickbooks Google Sheets Annual Budget
Finally, we have the Intuit Quickbooks Google Sheets Annual Budget template. As the name suggests, this template is built inside Google Sheets. You will be able to use it on your phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. The template is available via a direct link, or you can create it on your drive (Right Click > Google Sheets > From Template > Annual business budget by Intuit Quickbooks).
It’s a simple but powerful template. It’s great for absolute beginners who have some to none budgeting experience. The instructions are clear and brief. You can enter your monthly income and expenses and jump straight to the Summary tab to assess your financial performance via real-time generated graphs or tables.
The budgeting process is not challenging when you have the right tool at your disposal. The four free budget templates we shared with you can help you effortlessly manage and improve your budget. If you decide to incorporate one of them in your workflow, make sure to consistently use it to generate data and make informed business decisions.
