But for now, let’s focus on production scheduling. We’ll define both production scheduling and a production schedule and define what production scheduling is not. Then we’ll explain what to consider in production scheduling and how the process can benefit your projects.

What Is Production Scheduling?

A production schedule is a plan that helps facilitate the process of delivering products to customers and the marketplace. It’s part of the larger supply chain in manufacturing and includes everything from procurement of raw materials and labor and logistics to the costs involved and a production timeframe.

Manufacturers need to address production scheduling before they begin the manufacturing process. This might sound obvious, but production scheduling informs the costs involved in producing a product, such as the production itself and labor. Therefore, financial resources must be allocated for every step in your production cycle.

It’s essential to consider when to introduce your product to the marketplace. You want to do so quickly without negatively impacting quality, so many work backward from a deadline. That means understanding how long production will take and the timeline to transport finished goods to distributors. This requires balancing resources to have what you need when you need it.

That’s a lot of different pieces to coordinate. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software with robust Gantt charts to map your production schedule. Our Gantt charts allow you to manage your resources and costs in real time. All four task dependencies can be linked in the production schedule to avoid costly bottlenecks. Once you have your production scheduling planned, set a baseline to capture that plan. Now you can compare the planned schedule to the actual schedule when in production to help you stay on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Production Scheduling Process

To balance production orders with the availability of resources in a cost-effective manner, manufacturers apply the production scheduling process to their production facilities. It provides a better way to allocate resources, operations and processes when creating goods and services.

By following the steps below, manufacturers can adjust their production scheduling to reflect resource availability and client orders. However, your production schedule must be accurate in terms of the resources available to reap the benefits of production scheduling.

1. Production Planning

Everything rests on this step. Here, you’ll figure out the course of the entire production. Managers will look over production budgets, a demand plan, and the number of raw materials that will be required. There are two types of plans, static and dynamic, the former thinking that everything will follow the plan’s timeline and the latter believes everything can change. The dynamic plan is recommended as change is part of any execution of a plan.

2. Production Routing

Now with the plan done, you’ll want to determine the path the production will follow. This is routing. That is, how the raw materials are procured and then made into a finished product. The idea behind production routing is to determine the more economical sequence of operations in the production process.

3. Production Scheduling

This is when you determine the date and time that the production operation must be completed. There are three types of production scheduling, master scheduling (which defines the entire process from start to finish), manufacturing or operation scheduling (for routing raw materials) and retail operation scheduling (to get the finished product from the manufacturing facility to stores). You’ll want to include a contingency plan to respond to issues that negatively impact your schedule.

4. Dispatching & Execution

Once you’ve scheduled production, it’s time to share the plan with everyone involved. Assign the order of jobs, instructions and other production information that’s important for execution. Execution is when staff works together to ensure that the sequence of the production schedule is followed and deliverables meet deadlines. This means monitoring and removing bottlenecks that might delay production orders.

What Is a Production Schedule?

A production schedule is an integral part of production scheduling. The production schedule is a list of all the products that are to be manufactured. That list also notes where and when each product will be made.

The production schedule is very detailed and includes everything from raw materials to logistics and what processes will be used to run a smooth production line. Managers will also explore potential bottlenecks so they can avoid issues. The production schedule is reviewed throughout the manufacturing process and revised as needed to keep production running on time.

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Production schedules are only as reliable as the inventory and manufacturing data behind them. Fishbowl is an inventory and manufacturing platform built for small and midsize businesses running QuickBooks or Xero, and it exists to keep that data trustworthy without asking a shop to take on a full enterprise resource planning (ERP) project.

On the operations side, Fishbowl tracks on-hand stock, bills of materials (BOMs), work orders (WOs) and manufacturing orders (MOs) in one place, so a schedule can be built against what is actually available rather than what a spreadsheet said last week. Procurement lead times, work-in-progress, and finished goods stay visible as orders move, which is where most scheduling assumptions quietly fall apart.

On the finance side, Fishbowl acts as the source of truth that syncs inventory and manufacturing activity into QuickBooks and Xero. That accounting-first design supports clean cost of goods sold (COGS), landed-cost allocation, and a faster monthly close, so the numbers a controller sees match the numbers a production manager is scheduling against.

The practical effect is that scheduling stops living in a silo. When capacity, materials and costs read from the same system, the production schedule reflects the real state of the business, and changes on the floor show up in the books without a separate reconciliation pass.

Related: Best Production Scheduling Software

Not only managers but sales teams benefit from a production schedule. Sales can use the production schedule to keep the manufacturing team updated on the demand for the product. And, of course, managers can keep sales aware of what product is available.

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Production Schedule Template

Use this free Production Schedule Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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What Should Be Included In a Production Schedule?

When creating a production schedule these elements must be included to help the project be delivered on time: forecasted production volume, production timeline, lead times, resource requirements, production tasks and processes and estimated project costs. Let’s review each of these.

Forecasted Production Volume

This refers to the anticipated quantity of products or services that will be produced within a specific time. This metric is essential for planning and resource allocation to ensure production meets demand. It includes quantitative estimates, demand analysis, production capacity, schedule alignment and adjusting as necessary when monitoring and reviewing production.

Production Timeline

This detailed schedule outlines the sequences of tasks and milestones required to complete a project within a specified time. This roadmap helps teams understand what needs to be done and when it has to be completed. To do this, tasks have start and end dates, milestones are added to define important dates and help monitor progress.

Lead Times

Lead time in a production schedule can refer to a few different things. For example, there is procurement lead times, which refers to the time required to acquire materials or equipment. Production lead time is the time needed for each step in the production process. Finally, delivery lead times are the time needed to ship the finished product or deliver services.

Resource Requirements

When referring to resource requirements in a production schedule, this means anything that is needed to execute the tasks. Therefore, resource requirements run the gamut from materials, such as raw materials or inputs required for production, personnel, equipment and machinery to the budget.

Production Tasks & Processes

This encompasses all the activities and steps required to complete the project. Each step in the production process must be broken down into tasks and the sequence of those tasks defined. It can also include material sourcing, supplier coordination, equipment setup, workflow planning and more.

Estimated Production Costs

Ensure that all production costs are covered, including direct material costs, such as raw materials, direct labor costs, as in wages and manufacturing overhead costs that range from utilities, maintenance and other factory-related expenses. There are also variable costs that fluctuate with production volume and fixed costs that are constant.

Production Schedule Template

This free production schedule template for Excel helps you schedule production orders and keep track of their status and due dates for manufacturing and shipping. It also allows you to keep track of the starting and ending inventory of finished goods after each production order to help you maintain optimum inventory levels.

Who Should Participate in the Production Scheduling Process?

Many professionals are involved in the production scheduling process. They include the production managers, production scheduler, procurement team, inventory manager, production engineering team, marketing and sales team and maintenance team. We’ll briefly describe each below.

Production Manager

The production manager is responsible for overseeing the production process, including realistic timelines and coordinating resources. They establish objectives and create the schedule, monitoring and adjusting that schedule as needed, ensuring quality deliverables and reporting to make insightful analyses.

Production Scheduler

A production scheduler oversees the production scheduling process, managing production schedules and allocating resources strategically to ensure that his organization can respond to customer orders at any point. To do so, production schedulers must constantly collaborate with production managers, production planners and cross-functional teams to ensure the production process is as efficient as possible.

A production scheduler must demonstrate working knowledge in key areas of production management such as production planning, optimization and control but also managerial skills such as resource planning, workflow management, team management and project scheduling.

Procurement Team

The procurement team is involved in material sourcing, identifying suppliers and vendor management to ensure the necessary materials, components and services are acquired in a timely and cost-effective manner. They work closely with production planners and analyze production forecasts. Procurement teams are responsible for creating and managing purchase orders.

Inventory Manager

The inventory manager ensures that the necessary materials and components are available when needed. They do this through material planning, which involves demand forecasting and tracking stock levels to prevent stockouts. They also oversee work-in-progress and finished goods.

Production Engineering Team

This technical team provides expertise to ensure processes are designed, optimized and maintained for efficient production. They develop production processes and analyze workflows to minimize bottlenecks and improve efficiency. The team assesses the production capacity of equipment and resources to determine how much can be produced and identify constraints that could impact the schedule.

Marketing and Sales Team

The marketing and sales team provides insights related to customer demand, market trends and promotional strategies. They provide demand forecasting, schedule new product launches and collect customer feedback to gather insights and manage expectations.

Maintenance Team

The maintenance team ensures that equipment and materials are operating smoothly and efficiently. They plan preventive maintenance for equipment and schedule all maintenance activities. The maintenance team also monitors equipment performance, performs emergency repairs and collaborates with production managers to understand production schedules and identify critical periods when equipment must be operational.

Production Schedule vs. Production Plan

Production scheduling and production planning work together but they are separate processes. In fact, sometimes a manufacturer will use one instead of both depending on the type of production they’re doing.

There are differences between the two and it’s important to understand what those differences are. One way to look at it is that production planning is a general overview of when a product is made, but a production schedule is a far more detailed look into that process.

Production Schedule vs. Master Production Schedule (MPS)

A master production schedule (MPS) details what, when and how many products a manufacturer will produce in the long term across the entire organization, usually covering weeks, months or even quarters. It links the demand determined by sales to the capacity a company has to make multiple production runs for all its production lines. Therefore, the master production schedule helps create a realistic plan that avoids overstocking warehouses but maintains on-time delivery.

A production schedule shares many qualities with the MPS, but the main difference is that its scope is much more specific as it focuses on individual production runs or batches of products and is meant to be used at a shop floor level for guiding everyday production processes and activities.

How to Make a Production Schedule

Production schedules vary from one organization to another depending on the production scheduling tools you use, the level of detail you’d like to include and the specific characteristics of your manufacturing process. Having said that, here are five general steps any organization should follow when making a production schedule.

1. Estimate Customer Demand

Before you make a realistic production schedule, you’ll need to forecast the future customer demand for your product so you have a better idea of the ideal production volume your organization should manufacture to ensure there’s enough product supply for fulfilling customer orders.

Various demand planning techniques and business analytics tools can make an accurate sales forecast for your business. Sales forecasts can be made for various time frames such as quarterly, monthly or yearly.

2. Measure Your Production Capacity

Once you’ve created a sales forecast, you’ll then need to measure your production capacity, which refers to the organizational resources such as raw materials, labor and capital assets that your organization uses to manufacture goods and evaluate whether there are enough resources to meet customer demand and manufacture products on time.

If this isn’t the case, you should invest in your manufacturing facilities to expand your production capacity. If that’s not possible, try production optimization techniques such as re-thinking your shop floor or balancing the workload of assembly line stations.

3. Make a Production Budget

Based on your sales forecast and production capacity, you can now make a production budget, which is a document that allows you to estimate the ideal number of units that should be produced to meet customer demand and also maintain optimal product stock inventory levels.

4. Optimize Production Routing

Production routing consists of defining the route that materials, parts and components will take across the production floor as they’re transformed into final products by production workers. The main objective of the production routing process is to identify the most efficient route in terms of time, effort and cost. By defining the production route, you can also accurately measure how long it’ll take to make your products.

5. Schedule Production Activities

At this point, you should clearly understand the quantity of product that needs to be manufactured, how much it’ll cost and how long it’ll take. Now, you’re finally ready to schedule production orders to meet the production budget you’ve defined.

Production Schedule Example

Various tools can make a production schedule, from a simple spreadsheet or task list with production order details and due dates to more advanced production scheduling tools such as Gantt charts.

Here’s an example of what a Gantt chart production schedule looks like. On the left side, you can list the major stages of your production process, which in this case are “design,” “prototyping” and “pre-production” among others. To complete these production processes, the team must execute many smaller tasks, such as 3D rendering, CNC machining and durability testing.

As you can see in our production schedule example image, a Gantt chart allows you to enter details about these tasks such as their due dates, duration, costs and more. On the right-hand side, there’s a visual timeline that shows bars to represent the duration of tasks over a calendar and allows you to track their percentage of completion and identify any dependencies between them.

If you prefer, use the visual timeline bars to represent each of your production orders to create a high-level view Gantt chart production schedule that allows you to check their progress and due dates at a glance. Or if you’re not ready for Gantt charts yet, you can use a manufacturing template for Excel to keep track of production orders.

Production Scheduling Techniques

Various production scheduling techniques can help you streamline your manufacturing process and efficiently use organizational resources. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most commonly used methods to make a production schedule.

Forward Scheduling

This production scheduling technique consists of manufacturing orders as soon as they’re received, or whenever resources become available. This ensures your production workers and capital assets have a high resource utilization rate but might make it difficult for your organization to accommodate new orders as production capacity is always limited.

Backward Scheduling

As its name suggests, this production scheduling method works in the exact opposite manner as forward scheduling. In a backward scheduling approach, manufacturers wait until the last day of the lead time to manufacture production orders. While it might seem counterintuitive, this allows them to use their production capacity strategically to take as many orders as possible.

Make-to-Order Production Scheduling

In a make-to-order production scheduling approach, manufacturers don’t keep an inventory of product stock so they only make the exact number of product units to meet customer orders.

Make-to-Stock

This production scheduling method is used by manufacturers who sell their products through physical distribution channels such as brick-and-mortar retail shops that hold inventories of product stock for sale. In a make-to-stock manufacturing approach, manufacturers constantly check stock inventory levels and schedule production orders to replenish them.

Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS)

In a finite capacity production scheduling model, manufacturers schedule production orders based on their available production capacity. This conservative production scheduling approach helps ensure that organizations don’t take customer orders they can’t complete on time which is ideal for small to medium-sized manufacturing companies with limited resources.

Infinite Capacity Planning

The opposite of finite capacity scheduling, this method ignores production capacity constraints and consists of scheduling production orders based on their lead time but ignores resource constraints, which is a preferred method for larger organizations.

In this production method, resources utilized for a production order might be reallocated from one to another based on their lead time and due dates.

Key Factors to Consider In Production Scheduling

Because production scheduling is such a large job, it can seem overwhelming. It’s best to look at it as a collection of many smaller jobs or factors that contribute to production. Let’s look at some things you’ll need to consider when production scheduling.

• Production capacity: The most output measured in units of output per period.
• Production forecasting: Projection of the number of finished products or subassemblies that’ll be produced in a specific period to meet forecasted sales.
• Production inventory: Everything that’s used in the manufacturing process.
• Required raw materials & components: Specific items in production inventory.
• Supply chain: A series of processes in the production and distribution of a product.
• Available equipment: Metric to measure the percentage of time a piece of equipment can operate.
• Operations management: The production schedule must stay up-to-date on what’s going on with the organization.
• Plant layout: This is important as the time it takes to transport materials and process them is part of the larger production schedule.
• Real-time data integration: Schedules increasingly draw on live inventory, work order and shop floor data rather than a static forecast, so they can flex the moment materials, capacity or demand change instead of days or weeks later.
• Workforce and skills: Experienced production schedulers and planners can be hard to find and retain, which is one reason manufacturers are turning to automation and AI-driven scheduling to fill the gap rather than replace the role entirely.

Common Production Scheduling Challenges

Even a well-built production schedule runs into the same handful of problems. Knowing what typically goes wrong makes it easier to design a schedule and pick tools that hold up in practice.

• Data silos: Scheduling, inventory and accounting often live in separate systems, so the schedule reflects what a spreadsheet said last week rather than current stock, work orders or costs.
• Demand volatility: A late customer order, a rush request or a sudden dip in demand can invalidate a schedule that was accurate when it was built, especially in make-to-order environments.
• Resource and capacity conflicts: When multiple orders compete for the same equipment, labor or materials, schedules can look fine on paper but fall apart the moment two jobs need the same resource at once.
• Static, manual planning: Schedules built and maintained in spreadsheets go stale quickly and are slow to update when something changes, which is part of why real-time data integration and AI-driven scheduling have become more common.
• Thin scheduling bench strength: With experienced schedulers in short supply, schedules can end up too dependent on one person’s knowledge, making it harder to adjust quickly when that person is unavailable.

The common thread across all of these is visibility: the schedule needs to reflect what’s actually happening on the floor, in the warehouse and in the books, which is exactly what software is meant to solve.

Production Scheduling Software

Production scheduling software helps manufacturers better schedule their production lines, including equipment and resources. It can automate certain activities to streamline work and define employees’ availability to make it easier to assign them to jobs.

It monitors and tracks the schedule to help managers catch issues and respond to them quickly to avoid any slowdown or delay or delivery. It can address customer demand and reduce lead time getting products into retail shops or eCommerce. Production scheduling software can help with workflows, timesheets and much more.

Choosing software to manage your production scheduling process can be difficult, which is why we’ve reviewed the best free and paid production scheduling software in our blog to help you make an informed decision.

ProjectManager Has Powerful Production Scheduling Tools

ProjectManager is award-winning scheduling software that helps managers plan, manage and track their jobs in real time. Live dashboards and customizable reporting tools allow managers to have transparency into the production line, whether getting a high-level view of costs, time and more or digging deeper into status reports, variance and other reports that can be shared with stakeholders to keep them updated.

Make Detailed Production Schedules with Gantt Charts

You can use ProjectManager’s Gantt chart to map all your production orders in one place and visualize their duration and due dates at a glance. In addition, you can zoom into the activities that need to be completed to transform your raw materials, parts and components into final products. You can track their percentage of completion, costs, task dependencies, priority and much more.

Create Production Workflows With Kanban Boards

Creating custom workflows allows production to move from one activity to the next. You can even automate workflows by adding triggers that will change the status, assignee and more. To ensure that only quality moves forward on the production line, set task approvals and designate someone with authority to review and approve. Our software has multiple project views so the production scheduling of the Gantt chart is the same when you toggle over the kanban board, which makes it easy to visualize the workflow.

Track Resource Utilization With Timesheets and Workload Charts

Keeping track of your resources is essential to staying on a production schedule. Our software has resource management tools that can keep your production line working more efficiently. There are tools, such as secure timesheets, which do more than streamline payroll. They also show you a real-time picture of how complete each team member’s job is. You can set the availability of team members’ PTO, vacations and global holidays, which makes it easier to assign them work. Then our color-coded workload chart makes it easy to see who is overallocated. You can balance their workload from that chart to keep production on track.

As mentioned above, production scheduling must be flexible and adjust to changes. Our risk management features make it easier to identify risk and track issues in real time to ensure that there’s as little disruption as possible. Our collaborative platform makes it easy for everyone to share files, comment and more whether they’re on the production line or in the office. Manufacturers can benefit from all the features of our software.

Related Content

• Best Production Scheduling Software Rankings
• Best Production Planning Software Rankings
• Best Production Tracking Software
• Production Management: A Quick Guide
• Production Planning in Manufacturing: Best Practices
• Production Schedule Template
• How to Create a Master Production Schedule (MPS)
• Programación de producción: Cómo crear un cronograma de producción
• Planification du calendrier de production : les bases
• Produktionsplanung Grundlagen: Einen Produktionsplan erstellen

ProjectManager is online scheduling software that builds schedules and helps you execute them more efficiently. Use tools to plan, assign, track and report on all aspects of your production. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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Allocating resources helps to complete tasks on time and keeps the project on budget. While project management software is the best solution for managing project time, templates can also help. That’s why we’ve collected seven free time management templates to help deliver successful projects.

Why Use Time Management Templates?

Time management templates help deliver successful projects. That’s because time management is a key part of project management for many reasons. Time management templates help prioritize work, which allows teams to manage their time better. This leads to greater productivity.

Time management templates can also help with making important decisions. It allows managers and team members alike to make decisions quickly thanks to tasks and activities having deadlines and priorities. This also relieves the stress that comes from procrastination, which can lead to waiting until the last minute to complete work and that can lead to shoddy quality.

The only reason not to use time management templates is that they’re static documents that don’t foster collaboration and pull users away from their work to manually update them. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has time management features, such as secure timesheets that can easily track time spent on tasks as well as the associated labor costs. Users can log hours anywhere to streamline payroll and save money with accurate project time management. Archiving timesheets gives managers historical data on labor costs that can help better estimate time and costs for future projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Best Time Management Templates for Excel

For those who aren’t ready to upgrade to project management software, these free time management templates for Excel can help them manage their projects and teams better. They can’t deliver the efficiency of a software solution, but they do a good job of creating timesheets, work schedules, project calendars and much more.

1. Daily Schedule Template

A daily schedule template helps individuals and teams map out their hours before the day begins, turning vague intentions into a structured plan. By assigning time blocks to specific tasks, it reduces the mental overhead of deciding what to work on next and keeps priorities front and center throughout the workday.

Using a daily schedule template consistently builds a habit of proactive time management rather than reactive task-switching. It also creates a record of how time was actually spent, which is useful for spotting patterns, adjusting workloads and improving personal productivity over time.

2. Weekly Schedule Template

A weekly schedule template gives teams a bird’s-eye view of the full week ahead, making it easier to balance workloads, prepare for meetings and anticipate deadlines before they arrive. Planning at the weekly level reduces the risk of last-minute rushes by surfacing conflicts and gaps while there’s still time to act.

With a weekly schedule template, managers can distribute work more evenly across the team while individuals can align their daily priorities to broader weekly goals. Reviewing and updating the schedule at the start of each week is one of the simplest habits that consistently improves how time gets used across a project.

3. Work Schedule Template

This work schedule is a time management template to plan and control the human resources of an organization or project. It lists all employees, their location, working times and responsibilities over a specific period. That period can be a day, week or month. It’s a way to ensure that employees and teams are productive and work as efficiently as possible. Use this free work schedule template for Excel to track resource utilization, streamline work scheduling processes and help meet deadlines.

Use this free time management template as a weekly work schedule, which is especially useful for businesses with variable workloads, which plan their schedules based on customer demand forecasts. It can be a monthly work schedule for longer projects with clearly defined tasks and deliverables. The time management template can also be a daily work schedule where employee performance is monitored daily. It can also be used for a work shift schedule, flexible work schedule and part-time or full-time work schedules.

4. Project Calendar Template

Another time management template is a project calendar template for Excel. This free template makes it easy to see assignments on a monthly grid, with deadlines and more. It’s a great tool for planning schedules, executing tasks and managing work throughout a project’s life cycle. Not only is it a time management template, but it is also a to-do list to help teams get their work done promptly. Therefore, it also acts as a task management tool, can help with team collaboration and communicate changes in workflow.

Project managers can use this time management template to chart the regular hours of their team, which makes it easier for them to see the availability of those team members when making assignments. The free calendar template can also be used to avoid scheduling delays by noting holidays, vacations and PTO of the team members. There are also resource management advantages to using this time management template as it helps schedule resources beyond human resources. It’s also a communication tool to keep everyone aware of their work and important dates.

5. Project Timeline Template

A project timeline is used in planning to add project tasks, due dates and milestones. Most timelines are made with Gantt charts, which are divided into two parts: a spreadsheet with the data collected on the left and a timeline showing the entire project on the right. This time management template is the first step to managing the project schedule and delivering that project on time.

Download the free project timeline template for Excel to create a project schedule. It can also be used to share the project schedule with the team and stakeholders to manage their expectations. This time management template collects all the project tasks, start and end dates, plus duration on the left-hand spreadsheet. The right-hand timeline is then automatically populated with this data. The timeline taskbars, which represent the duration of specific tasks, can then be color-coded to differentiate the different phases of the project to make the time management template easier to read.

6. Workload Analysis Template

Workload analysis is used when managing a workforce. Its goal is to evenly distribute the workload across all team members to keep them working at capacity without risking burnout and eroding morale. This time management template is also a productivity tool and delivers better work quality while increasing team member satisfaction. The free workload analysis template for Excel identifies, measures and evaluates the amount of work each team member needs to do and how to balance that to avoid over-allocation.

This workload management tool will help managers get the most out of their workforce and help to produce high-quality deliverables. It can also help with resource identification and getting an accurate picture of the resources available for the project. Analyzing things like seasonality and potential disruptions to the workforce leads to a more strategic plan that helps managers better prepare for the unexpected.

7. Meeting Agenda Template

A meeting agenda template ensures every meeting starts with a clear purpose and a structured list of topics, preventing the unfocused discussions that make meetings feel like a waste of time. By distributing the agenda in advance, participants arrive prepared, which shortens meetings and produces better decisions.

Poor meeting management is one of the most common sources of lost time in the workplace. A meeting agenda template forces organizers to think through what needs to be decided before the meeting starts, making it easier to stay on track and end on time. It also creates a reference document for following up on action items after the meeting concludes.

8. 30-60-90 Day Plan Template

A 30-60-90 day plan template breaks a longer planning horizon into three focused phases, making large goals easier to sequence and execute. Commonly used for onboarding new hires or launching initiatives, it helps define what needs to be learned, contributed and led within the first three months.

Beyond onboarding, a 30-60-90 day plan template is useful any time a team needs to structure progress toward a milestone over a medium-term window. By setting expectations for each phase, it creates accountability checkpoints that keep work moving without requiring constant check-ins from management.

Pros and Cons of Using Excel for Time Management

Excel templates are only going to be helpful to a point. They serve a purpose, but eventually hit a wall and will be more frustrating than useful. That doesn’t mean Excel templates for time management are without merit. Here’s a short list of their pros and cons.

Pros of Excel for Time Management

• Easy to use
• Cost-effective
• Organize data

Cons of Excel for Time Management

• Needs technical expertise to get the most out of Excel templates, such as knowing formulas, conditional formatting and filtering
• Poor collaborative tool, as templates are static documents
• Risk of data loss or corruption
• Manual updates are time-consuming

Go Beyond Excel Time Management Worksheets With ProjectManager

It’s clear to see time management templates have their uses, but they fall short of project management software. Their limitations will frustrate managers who want to track time to ensure that teams are working efficiently and keeping to their schedule. To get the most out of time management and other project management techniques use ProjectManager, award-winning project and portfolio management software that uses multiple project views to plan, manage and track time throughout the project’s life cycle. For example, our Gantt charts schedule tasks and resources and filter for the critical path. Use timesheets to track time and labor costs or leverage other tools to monitor progress and more.

Track Time With Dashboard and Reports

Monitoring the team’s progress with real-time project and portfolio dashboards is easy. They offer a high-level overview of the project, collecting live data and displaying it on easy-to-read graphs and charts that show time, but also costs, workload and more. Use this tool as an instant status report to spot issues and keep projects running on schedule. For more detail, toggle over to the customizable reports that can be generated with a keystroke and filtered to show details for managers and more general data to keep stakeholders informed. For example, timesheet reports can show the hours teams have submitted, get time estimates and streamline payroll.

Use Calendars and Resource Management Features

One of the multiple project views accessible with our software is the calendar. It can help managers plan availability for their team, which can be set when onboarding the team. The calendar can show if there are vacations, PTO or even global holidays. Managers can use the color-coded workload charts to easily see who is overallocated and then balance the workload right from that chart. This keeps teams working at capacity without burning them out.

Related Time Management Content

For those looking to explore time management beyond the time management template, there are many opportunities to do so on our site. We published weekly blogs, guides, eBooks and free templates on all aspects of project management as it relates to various industries. Here are some of the recent posts we’ve published on time management.

• Project Time Management Software
• 15 Excel Spreadsheet Templates for Tracking Tasks, Costs & Time
• Time Estimation in Project Management: Tips & Techniques
• Project Time Management: Strategies, Tips & Tools
• A Quick Guide to Time Blocking
• Time and Materials Contract (T&M): When to Use One

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office, out in the field or anywhere else in the world. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay up to date with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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There are resource allocation templates, resource management Excel templates, resource planning Excel templates and resource forecasting templates to ensure that projects have the resources they need when they need them to deliver projects on time, within budget and while meeting quality standards. This collection also covers role clarity and workforce continuity, giving teams the tools to manage resources from initial planning through long-term succession.

1. Resource Plan Template

A resource plan is when project managers identify, list and organize the resources required to complete the project. This resource management template helps determine the amount of resources needed, how much they’ll cost and when they’ll be required in the project. This includes storable (available unless used up) and non-storable resources (must be restocked periodically or used during specific times).

Download this free resource plan template for Excel to integrate with the project schedule and budget to keep on track and not overspend when in the execution state. This resource management template is critical to the planning phase of any project. But it’s not a one-and-done activity. The resource plan template for Excel must be regularly reviewed and updated throughout the project life cycle as changes occur and impact the plan.

The problem is that templates aren’t a great tool for that. They can be helpful for planning, but because they’re static documents and must be manually updated. On top of that, it’s not collaborative, which means teams aren’t aware of the changes until they’re informed. Project management software can solve those problems. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has robust Gantt charts to plan resources and their costs and share with teams to keep them updated on deadlines, changes and more. Once the resource plan is done, set a baseline to capture it and compare that plan against the actual progress in real time. Templates can’t do that. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

2. Capacity Planning Template

It’s often said that people are one’s most valuable resource. To deliver projects on time, within budget and meeting quality standards, resource capacity must be well-planned. This free capacity planning template for Excel is the perfect tool to ensure an organization has an effective operational or project plan to meet future resource requirements.

Capacity planning is used to determine how much production capacity is needed to meet demand for products. It can be tricky as demand is constantly changing. To do this, managers have to integrate resource, time, team and work management processes. This resource management template helps balance available resources to meet customer demand or the project’s capacity needs.

This resource utilization template shows the time and effort used by everyone on the project team for them to do their assigned tasks. This allows managers to make the necessary changes to future projects based on skill set and team availability. Keep track of autonomous teams, stay aware of changing priorities, prepare for unpredictable tasks and manage remote workers.

3. Workload Analysis Template

Managing a team’s workload is crucial for many reasons. If some have more tasks than others it’s going to erode morale, reduce productivity and threaten burnout. To avoid those pitfalls, use this free workload analysis template for Excel. This resources management template helps to evenly distribute tasks across project teams.

This is done by identifying, measuring and evaluating the work that must be completed by team members to deliver the project. Workload analysis is used to avoid overallocation and underutilization, which can negatively impact the project schedule, budget, quality and more. This aspect of workload management gives managers a process to get the best performances from their teams and allows them to produce the highest-quality deliverables.

Use this resource management template and reap those benefits by first listing all the team members by name and hourly pay rate. Then, enter their total available work hours per month. At this point, the manager will begin to allocate work hours to each team member and, as they execute those tasks, monitor the resource utilization rate and costs. Of course, this must all be done manually, which can be frustrating, but there is a solution, which we’ll get to shortly.

4. Timesheet Template

Timesheets aren’t necessarily top of mind when thinking about resource management. They’re more associated with payroll and human resources. While that is true, there is more to timesheets than simply capturing the hours a team member has worked. Using a free timesheet template for Excel can provide more benefits than one would first expect.

Yes, this resource management template will help employers to keep track of the hours their employees work. It collects all the pertinent information needed to streamline that process, from the personnel data, such as the employee’s name, department, supervisor and hourly rate. The timesheet is then divided into a week’s worth of work and the hours the employee works over that time are collected and added up.

How does this help with managing resources? It’s a window into labor costs, which is essential if one hopes to stay within budget. Managers can access these templates to look at where the team member is in terms of completing their tasks and how much that costs. If they’re behind, resources can be allocated to get the project schedule back on track before cost overruns threaten the project budget.

5. Job Estimate Template

There are many angles by which to approach resource management. One is by estimating the job, such as the materials and labor that will be needed to complete it on time and within budget. Using this free job estimate template for Excel is the first step to compile the costs and create a realistic schedule and budget.

This resource management template helps managers estimate costs for contracted work as well as a timeframe for completing the job. This is an essential step towards building an accurate budget for the work. Therefore, this resource forecasting template should be used in the early stages of a project, when soliciting quotes from vendors and contractors during the initiation phase.

The resource management template is broken into three distinct parts. There’s space to add the project description, which is important to put the work in context. Following that there is a chart where the labor needed is listed, including the dates required, duration and price. Following that is a similar chart for the materials, with dates, quantities and unit prices. These two subtotals are then added together and with tax will provide an accurate estimate of project costs.

6. Work Breakdown Structure Template

Before project managers can move on to identifying and allocating resources, they have to know the work that must be completed in the project. This free work breakdown structure for Excel is a tool that does just that. It’s a hierarchical chart with the final deliverable on top and the various other deliverables mapped below. From that, one can determine the tasks needed to create those deliverables.

This resource management template allows managers to visualize the deliverables in their projects and, in so doing, the tasks and subtasks that create them. It decomposes the total scope of work that will be done by the project team. Therefore, it’s an important tool to provide a place to start understanding cost estimating, control and the project schedule.

The work breakdown structure is divided into two sections. There’s a spreadsheet where all the project tasks can be listed. These tasks are broken down into sections that correspond to each of the five phases of the project. The other spreadsheet is the tree diagram with the main deliverable on top and the other deliverables that build to that point listed below.

7. Team Charter Template

The team charter is a document that sets the agenda for the project team before they start collaborating during the execution phase. It helps define who does what in the project and establishes boundaries, which is what makes it a useful resource management template. Like the project charter, this free team charter template for Word should be created early in the project.

The team charter is a way to set up human resources for the coming project. It offers guidance and support, identifies the team leader, sets up goals and defines the reason for the project. This resource management template is also a means to provide transparency for better alignment, accountability, etc.

Project managers can use this resource management template to educate their teams before assigning them tasks and moving into the execution phase of the project. It should answer all their questions and put them in a better place to do their jobs when the project manager allocates the resources.

8. RASCI Matrix Template for Excel

Even when resources are correctly allocated, projects stall when team members are unclear on who owns a decision or who needs to be consulted before work moves forward. A RASCI matrix template maps every task or deliverable to the people responsible, accountable, supporting, consulted and informed, removing the ambiguity that leads to duplicated effort and missed handoffs.

This RASCI matrix template for Excel lists tasks down one axis and team members across the other, with a cell for each RASCI designation. Managers can complete it at the start of a project to set clear expectations for every role and revisit it as the team or scope changes. It is especially useful on projects with multiple departments or external stakeholders where accountability needs to be explicit.

9. Succession Plan Template for Excel

People are the most critical resource on any project or team, which means resource management has to account for what happens when key contributors leave or move into new roles. A succession plan template helps organizations identify those critical positions, assess potential successors and build a development roadmap before a vacancy creates a disruption.

This succession plan template for Excel logs key employee details, successor readiness ratings and development actions in a structured spreadsheet. HR teams and project managers can use it to maintain an up-to-date view of workforce continuity risk and ensure that no single team member represents an unmanaged dependency on the project or the broader organization.

10. Work Log Template for Excel

Tracking what resources actually did – not just what was planned – is essential for accurate reporting and future estimating. A work log template gives teams a consistent way to record daily activity, time spent and task progress, creating a paper trail that supports both accountability and post-project analysis.

This work log template for Excel captures task descriptions, assigned resources, time logged and completion status across a project or work period. Managers can use it alongside timesheets and workload analysis templates to cross-reference planned versus actual resource use, identify bottlenecks early and build more accurate estimates for future projects.

ProjectManager Is Better Than an Estimate Template

All of these resource management templates are helpful, but only to a degree. The truth is templates are limited in scope. They’re not collaborative, which is necessary when managing resources, nor do they save time. Because managers must manually update resource management templates, they’re inherently inefficient. Download these free templates and find out. Then the upgrade to project management software is going to be a no-brainer. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that captures real-time data, is collaborative and has interactive Gantt charts to plan human and nonhuman resources with more control than a static template can provide.

Manage Resources in Real Time

Resource management templates can monitor resources in real time. This makes balancing workload a game of catch-up as resource utilization is at best old news. With real-time data collection, our software has multiple ways for managers to monitor and manage resources. Once teams are onboarded, where their availability is set to help make it easier to assign them to tasks, managers can view the team page or color-coded workload chart. From there they can balance the workload to keep everyone working at capacity and avoid burnout and poor morale.

Monitor Costs, Time and More

Another thing resource management templates aren’t equipped to handle is time and cost tracking. Once resources are planned, they must be monitored to ensure they’re meeting schedule and budget demands. Templates to that by manually inputting old data, but our software is constantly collecting live data. For example, get a high-level overview of the project or projects with real-time dashboards. They display metrics such as time, cost, workload and more in easy-to-read graphs and charts. Customizable reports offer more detailed data and secure timesheets to track labor costs and streamline payroll.

Related Project Estimating Content

When planning resources, estimating costs is essential to build and maintain a project budget. Resource management templates can help and project management software can do even more. But for those not ready to upgrade and want to learn more about project estimating, here are a handful of links to recent posts that can help with estimating project costs.

• Project Cost Estimation: How to Estimate Project Cost
• Calculating Estimate at Completion (EAC)
• Parametric Estimating in Project Management
• Best Construction Estimating Software of 2024
• Construction Estimating Guide

ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they are in the office, out in the field or anywhere else in the world. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post 10 Free Resource Management Templates appeared first on ProjectManager.

If you’re looking for other free project management templates, you’re in the right place. Our site is a hub for a variety of content related to the field, including weekly blogs, videos and, yes, free templates. There are downloadable templates for every phase in the project life cycle. We’ve cherrypicked the best change management templates and have listed them below.

1. Change Management Plan Template

A change management plan is a document that explains how an organization will manage project changes in detail. It describes the roles and responsibilities of the change management team, the change request evaluation process and any procedures and documentation that will be utilized.

This free change management plan template for Word includes a variety of tools to help establish a change management process for your projects, including a change log, stakeholder map, cost-benefit analysis grid and more.

As powerful as that template might be, it pales in comparison to ProjectManager. Our robust Gantt charts are more than a spreadsheet and timeline, you can link all four types of dependencies to avoid delays and then set a baseline to capture the cost, resources and schedule of your plan. Our software then automatically reports on the planned effort versus the actual effort in real time. Now you can see if you’re on schedule and, if not, reallocate resources quickly to get back on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

2. Gap Analysis Template

By definition, change takes you from one point to another. It might not be something you want, but more often than not, it’s something the client wants. They deliver a change order and, once approved, it’s your job to figure out how to get from point A to point B. The free gap analysis template for Excel helps you analyze where you are and where you want to be.

A gap analysis isn’t strictly for change management. It’s often used as a tool to help organizations meet long-term goals, stay innovative and generally improve their processes. But this project management chart can help you gather the information you’ll need to implement that change through a revised plan, including what resources you require and the timeline in which it must be completed

3. Change Readiness Assessment Template

Assessing the readiness of your team before a change is critical for ensuring its implementation is feasible. To do so, it’s necessary to evaluate different areas that play a role in the change implementation process such as the resistance to change, resource availability, communication planning and more.

The change readiness assessment process helps project managers understand what actions are needed to prepare their organization for implementing a change, such as training employees, identifying stakeholders, and establishing communication channels.

4. Change Impact Assessment Template

Organizations need to estimate the potential impact that a change might have on their finances, ability to operate, project intake process, resource capacity and any other areas that might be affected before implementing it so they can compare its benefits against potential risks.

Change impact assessment forms are ideal for listing down all the variables that need to be considered when assessing the impact of a change and assigning numerical values to them.

5. Change Implementation Plan Template

There’s a lot of planning involved when implementing a change. First, organizations identify the tasks that need to be executed, make a schedule, allocate resources, estimate costs and make a budget.

This free template helps change managers list tasks, indicate who they’re assigned to, due dates, duration and many other details that help them keep track of the change implementation process.

6. Project Plan Template

That makes for a nice segue into the next on our list of free change management templates. In a gap analysis, you build an action plan, but our free project plan template for Word fills in the missing pieces. Now you have a tool to help you scope your work and break it down into small pieces that’ll make it easier to execute and manage.

Besides listing all the activities and tasks that implement your change, you can also note milestones, phases and the resource requirements you’ll need. Some fields capture the schedule, any task dependencies as well as assumptions and constraints. This costs money, so there’s also a place to estimate the budget, add a risk log and lay out the change management process.

7. Project Timeline Template

Part of the plan, perhaps one of the most critical aspects, is the schedule. You can create a schedule on our free project timeline template for Excel. This is one of the free change management templates that go the extra mile. There’s a spreadsheet that lists your tasks, start dates, end dates and duration. As you add them, they populate a visual timeline to the right. You can color-code the phases and see the timeline for the change you’re implementing all on one page.

8. Change Request Form

Change can come out of the blue. There could be a weather-related issue or equipment problem. But more often than not, that change is being requested, usually by a client after you’ve already started executing the project. To ensure that the change doesn’t cause delays, make sure it’s delivered with our free change request form template for Word.

You can use this free change management template to collect every aspect of the change on one page. Write a brief description, impact on the project and whatever other information decision-makers will need. Remember, this is a change request. That means all parties have to agree on it, which makes the change manageable without derailing the larger project.

9. Change Log Template

A key part of any change management plan is a change log. It’s how you control change in your project. Our free change log template for Excel gives project managers greater visibility. It’s identified and team members have been assigned to respond to it. Therefore, they have accountability and you can track the effort.

Once you download the free spreadsheet, you can number the change to make it easy to know which change you’re tracking. There’s space to note when the change was first identified, who on the team has been assigned to respond to it and what the priority is. You can note the status, too, to better track its life cycle.

10. Stakeholder Analysis Template

Whether changes come from stakeholders or not, they have a vested interest in the project. Project managers must keep them updated on the progress of the project and that includes any changes that occur. Our free stakeholder analysis template for Excel is a great tool for identifying and managing your project stakeholders.

You’ll find fields to define stakeholders, including adding basic information about them, such as their title, email and influence of power on the project, whether it’s high, medium or low. Next, you can note each stakeholder’s relationship to the project as well as note their priority, subject matter expertise (SME) and relevant skills. Finally, there’s a space to outline how to communicate with each, including frequency.

11. Communication Plan Template

Speaking of communication, that might be one of the most important aspects of change management. The worst thing about change when it comes to your project is not acknowledging it. There must be transparency and for that to happen you need to use our free communication plan template for Word.

This template goes through everything, such as the background of the project—its vision and objectives, goals and timeframe and communication staff and tools to review the effectiveness, communication plan and record outcome. There’s also a place to explore situation analysis, lessons learned guidelines, messaging, delivery channels, schedule and, of course, stakeholders.

12. Cost-Benefit Analysis Template

Not all changes are a priority. That’s why you have to note the priority to know how to respond. One way to do that is with our free cost-benefit analysis template for Excel. It’s one of the change management templates you’ll find yourself reaching for more often than not. It can help you decide if the change is worth the investment.

Some changes aren’t debatable. If there’s a quality issue, it must be addressed. However, not all changes are the same and certainly, not all are created equally. With the free template, you can look at quantitative costs against quantitative benefits to calculate if the money you put in is worth the benefits you get out of the change.

13. Project Budget Template

Changes cost money. To ensure those costs are in line with your budget or you can offset them in terms of the schedule or scope of the project, you can use our free project budget template for Excel.

A budget helps you estimate all the tasks that make up your project. That includes all the resources you’re going to need, too. Yes, this is for the entire project, but it can be applied to just the change or you can add some wiggle room in the budget to help you pay for whatever changes are deemed necessary.

14. Change Order Form Template

Construction project managers are all too familiar with change. They deal with complex projects and change management is essential to keep them on track. That’s why they always use a change order form, and you can too by downloading this free change order form template for Word.

The change order form has a place to write why the change is being requested, the opportunity it provides to the project and a description of that change. You can add the cost involved in implementing the change and the estimated duration. There’s a total cost and signature line to ensure that everyone has agreed on the price, change and timeframe.

15. Transition Plan Template

Change management is not just about planning what will change; it is about managing how people and processes move from the old state to the new one. A transition plan template gives you a structured format to document every step of that movement, from current-state activities being phased out to new responsibilities being phased in. Without a clear transition plan, organizations often experience productivity losses and confusion even after the change itself is technically complete.

The transition plan template includes sections for defining the current state, the target state and the specific steps required to bridge them, along with timelines, owners and dependencies. It provides a ground-level complement to the change management plan, translating high-level strategy into the day-to-day actions people need to take. Tracking completion of each transition activity ensures nothing is left half-finished when the formal change launch is declared done.

This template is especially useful for technology migrations, departmental restructures and process overhauls where the handoff between old and new ways of working needs to be explicitly managed. Use it alongside the communication plan to keep stakeholders informed at each stage of the transition.

16. Risk Assessment Template

Every organizational change introduces risk, and the teams that manage change best are the ones that identify and address those risks before they materialize. A risk assessment template gives you a systematic way to surface potential problems, evaluate their likelihood and impact and assign mitigation responsibilities before the change goes live. Skipping this step is one of the most reliable ways to turn a well-planned change into a reactive crisis.

The risk assessment template includes a register for each identified risk, along with columns for probability, severity, risk score, mitigation strategy and the owner responsible for that mitigation. Scoring risks on a consistent scale makes it easy to prioritize where to focus attention and ensures that high-impact risks are never obscured by a long list of minor concerns. The document also serves as an accountability record throughout the change lifecycle.

This template pairs naturally with the change impact assessment and change management plan already in this collection. Together they give change leaders a complete picture of what could go wrong, what it would affect and who is responsible for preventing it.

17. After Action Report Template

Every change initiative generates lessons, and capturing them while they are still fresh is essential to improving how your organization manages change in the future. An after action report template provides a structured format for reviewing what went as planned, what did not and what should be done differently next time. Without this debrief, the same mistakes tend to repeat across projects because no one formally documented what went wrong or why.

The after action report template includes sections for documenting the original objectives, what was accomplished, what fell short, contributing factors and recommended improvements for future initiatives. Completing it as a team rather than individually tends to surface perspectives that a single author would miss. The finished report becomes a reference document that can inform planning for the next change initiative.

Use this template at the close of any change initiative, whether it went smoothly or not. The most valuable after action reports are often the ones written after a change that succeeded technically but created more disruption than expected.

ProjectManager Helps With Change Management

Some of the free change management templates listed above are helpful, but some might be frustrating as they have to be manually implemented. Older versions can be floating around which can cause costly mix-ups. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that has the features you need to plan, manage and track your change management plan in real time.

Work on Multiple Project Views

Project managers will create the change management plan on a Gantt chart, but teams use different tools to implement those changes. That’s why we have multiple project views that are all updated in real time together so everyone is always working on the most current information. Whether teams use kanban boards to visualize their workflow or a robust task list to track their work, our tool gives you the freedom to serve cross-functional teams and not make them adjust to the software.

Keep Track of Progress on Real-Time Dashboards

Rather than use static change management templates to track change, we have real-time dashboards that give you a high-level view of the project. They capture live data and display it in easy-to-read graphs and charts that show the overall health of the project, but also costs, time, workload and more. There’s no time-consuming configuration as with lightweight tools. It’s plug-and-play.

Want more detail? Use our customizable reports. They’re generated in a keystroke and can be filtered to show only the data you want to see. Then share them with your stakeholders to keep them updated on changes to the project.

Related Change Management Content

Change management is a big field. Change management templates only brush the surface. ProjectManager isn’t only superior project management software, it’s a site to learn about every phase of project management. Here is a selection of change management-related content.

• 15 Project Management Tools and Techniques Every PM Should Know
• 20 Must-Have Project Management Excel Templates
• Change Control Board: Roles, Responsibilities & Processes
• How to Make a Change Management Plan
• What Is Change Control in Project Management?
• Change Orders in Project Management
• 13 Plantillas de Gestión de Cambios Gratuitas para Excel y Word
• 13 Modèles de Gestion du Changement Gratuits pour Excel et Word
• 10 Modelos de Gestão de Mudanças Gratuitos para Excel e Word

ProjectManager is online project management software that empowers teams to plan, manage and track changes in their projects. Our collaborative platform connects teams across departments or continents, allowing them to share files, make comments and more. Besides fostering collaboration we have task management, risk management and resource management features to keep teams productive and projects on schedule. Get started with ProjectManger today for free.

The post 17 Free Change Management Templates for Excel and Word appeared first on ProjectManager.

Templates make that planning faster. Instead of building a resource tracking system from scratch, you start with a proven structure, fill in your project’s specifics and get to actual work sooner. The right template captures the information that matters: who is responsible for what, when they’re needed and how much it’s going to cost.

Below are 10 free resource planning templates for Excel and Word covering every stage of the resource lifecycle, from estimating what you’ll need to scheduling your team and tracking their skills. Download any of them for free and adapt them to your project.

1. Resource Plan Template for Excel

A project without a resource plan is a plan without a foundation. You might know what work needs to happen, but without mapping every resource required to do it, including labor, materials, equipment and budget, you’re setting yourself up for shortages, conflicts and unplanned costs. A resource plan template gives you a single place to document every resource across the project lifecycle so nothing gets overlooked when planning starts.

This free resource plan template for Excel covers the full scope of project resources. It includes columns for resource type, description, quantity, cost and availability timeline so you can see at a glance what you need and when. There are sections for both human and non-human resources, making it suitable for construction, IT, marketing and professional services projects alike.

Use it at the start of a new project to build your resource inventory or during project planning to cross-reference resource availability against your schedule. It works equally well as a standalone planning document or as a companion to your project plan.

2. Staffing Plan Template for Excel

Getting the right people into the right roles at the right time is harder than it sounds. Projects often kick off before the team is fully assembled, and without a clear picture of who fills which role, projects stall waiting on the wrong person or get started with an incomplete crew. A staffing plan template makes the hiring and assignment process systematic so team composition is decided before the project begins, not during it.

This free staffing plan template for Excel outlines each role needed for the project, the required skills and qualifications, planned start and end dates and whether the position is filled or open. It provides the structure to cross-reference headcount against the project schedule so you can identify resource gaps before they become delays.

Manage Resource Planning in Real Time

ProjectManager is online project management software with interactive Gantt charts, live workload views and real-time dashboards that keep your resource plan and your project schedule in sync from day one. Try it free for 30 days.

3. Skills Matrix Template for Excel

Most managers know their teams. Fewer have a clear record of exactly who can do what, at what level of competency and where the gaps are. When a new project lands and you need someone with a specific certification or technical skill, guessing wastes time. A skills matrix template maps your team’s capabilities against project requirements so resource decisions are based on data rather than memory.

This free skills matrix template for Excel lists team members down the left side and skills across the top, with a rating scale in each cell to show current proficiency levels. It’s easy to filter by skill, spot who’s overqualified for routine work and identify where training investment would do the most good.

Skills matrices are especially useful in project planning when allocating people to tasks and in HR reviews when identifying where the organization needs to develop or hire. Fill it out once and update it quarterly as team skills evolve.

4. Employee Schedule Template for Excel

Idle time costs money. So does double-booking someone across two projects simultaneously. Without a visual schedule showing who is working, where and when, resource conflicts tend to surface only after they’ve already caused a problem. An employee schedule template gives you a weekly view of your workforce, making overlaps and gaps visible before they disrupt production.

This free employee schedule template for Excel organizes staff by name or role with a seven-day grid for assigning shifts, tasks or project work. Managers can see coverage at a glance, note absences and plan around known constraints like PTO, training days or part-time availability.

It works well in any environment with shift-based staffing, including manufacturing, healthcare, retail and construction. It can also be adapted for knowledge-work environments where you need to plan who is on which project each day of the week.

5. Training Matrix Template for Excel

Keeping track of who has completed which training, which certifications are current and which ones are coming up for renewal is an administrative burden that most organizations underestimate. When a certification lapses unnoticed, it creates compliance risk. When someone is assigned to a task requiring credentials they no longer hold, it creates a safety issue. A training matrix template keeps all of this visible in one document.

This free training matrix template for Excel organizes employees by name with columns for each required training or certification, completion dates, renewal dates and current status. Color-coding makes it easy to see who is current, who is overdue and who is approaching an expiry that needs attention.

It’s particularly valuable in regulated industries including healthcare, construction, manufacturing and finance where certifications are mandatory and audits happen. Use it alongside a skills matrix to give a fuller picture of both hard skills and compliance standing.

6. Annual Work Plan Template for Word

Resource planning doesn’t just happen at the project level. Departments and organizations need to plan how their people, budget and capacity will be allocated across the full year and across multiple initiatives. Without a high-level annual plan, resource conflicts between teams are only discovered mid-quarter, when it’s too late to fix them cleanly. An annual work plan template builds that visibility at the organizational level.

This free annual work plan template for Word outlines goals, key initiatives, assigned owners, required resources and milestones across a 12-month horizon. It provides a structure for leadership teams to document what work is planned, who is accountable and what resources are earmarked for each initiative before the year begins.

It’s best suited to department heads, operations managers and program directors who need to present a full-year resource picture to leadership or align multiple project teams around shared goals.

7. Organizational Chart Template for Excel

Knowing who reports to whom matters for resource planning. When you’re trying to identify who has authority to approve resource requests, who can be pulled into a project without a manager’s sign-off or which team has capacity to absorb extra work, an unclear org structure creates friction. An organizational chart template makes the hierarchy visible so those decisions happen faster.

This free organizational chart template for Excel maps out the full team structure from executive leadership down to individual contributors, with lines showing reporting relationships. Names, titles and departments are included, and the layout is easy to update as the organization changes.

Use it at the start of project planning to identify the right stakeholders, during resource negotiation to understand who controls what capacity and as a communication tool when onboarding new team members who need to understand how the organization is structured.

8. Estimate Template for Excel

Resource planning starts before the project does, in the estimate. If your labor hours, material quantities and vendor costs are underestimated from the start, every subsequent resource plan is built on a weak foundation. Scope creep becomes inevitable not because requirements changed, but because the original plan never had room for the actual work. A project estimate template gives you the structure to think through resource needs before a single task is assigned.

This free estimate template for Excel captures each deliverable or work package with associated labor hours by role, material costs, subcontractor fees and contingency. It produces a bottom-up cost estimate you can use to validate project budgets, support proposal submissions or get sign-off from stakeholders before committing to a timeline.

Best used during presales or project initiation when you need to put a number on what the project requires. Revisit it during project planning to cross-check that your staffing plan and resource budget align with the original estimate.

9. 30-60-90 Day Plan Template for Word

Bringing a new team member into a project without a structured ramp-up plan is one of the most common resource planning oversights. The cost isn’t just in onboarding time; it’s in the weeks before the new hire contributes at full capacity, while still consuming resources and attention from the rest of the team. A 30-60-90 day plan template structures that ramp-up period so new team members become productive contributors faster.

This free 30-60-90 day plan template for Word breaks the first three months on the job into three distinct phases, each with its own goals, activities, success metrics and checkpoints. Managers and new hires can align on expectations from day one, reducing ambiguity and giving both parties a clear picture of what success looks like in each phase.

It’s useful for project managers onboarding new team members, HR departments standardizing their new hire experience and leaders stepping into a new role who want to deliver early wins within the first quarter.

10. Training Record Template for Excel

Without a central record of training history, organizations end up with fragmented documentation across email inboxes, shared drives and paper certificates. When an auditor asks for proof of compliance or a project manager wants to confirm that a team member has completed a required safety course, nobody knows where to look. A training record template puts all of that information in one place.

This free training record template for Excel captures each employee’s training history in a structured log, including course name, provider, completion date, outcome and any associated certification number. It’s designed to work for both mandatory compliance training and optional professional development so the same template can serve HR, operations and individual managers.

Use it to maintain a running log of team-wide training history, to prepare for audits and to provide employees with a portable record of their own development. It works well alongside the training matrix above to separate who needs to be trained from who has already been trained.

Manage Resource Planning With ProjectManager

Templates are a strong starting point, but resource planning in real projects moves fast. When priorities shift, someone calls in sick or a new project lands mid-sprint, a spreadsheet struggles to keep up. ProjectManager is online project management software that handles resource planning dynamically, so teams always have an accurate picture of where their resources stand.

Plan and Allocate Resources on Interactive Gantt Charts

ProjectManager’s Gantt charts do more than schedule tasks. Each task carries resource assignments, labor costs and estimated hours so your project schedule and resource plan stay in sync from the start. You can link dependencies, set baselines and track actual resource usage against the plan as the project runs. When something shifts, drag and drop to update the schedule and resource assignments adjust automatically.

Balance Workloads Across Your Team

Knowing who is assigned to which task is only half the picture. ProjectManager’s workload view shows how many hours each team member has committed across all of their projects, not just the one you’re looking at. If someone is over-allocated, you can see it immediately and rebalance the work before it becomes a bottleneck. Filter by team, date range or project to get exactly the view you need.

Related Content

• Resource Planning: A Guide for Project Managers
• Resource Management: A Guide for Project Managers
• Resource Allocation: How to Allocate Resources for Projects
• Capacity Planning: A Guide for Project Managers
• Staffing Plan: A Guide to Building One for Your Team

The post 10 Free Resource Planning Templates for Excel appeared first on ProjectManager.

A time tracking template gives you a consistent structure for capturing hours before they disappear into memory. Whether you are logging daily tasks, blocking out the week ahead or building an invoice from hours worked, a template keeps the format the same every time so the data is comparable and easy to review. It also makes the habit easier to maintain: a blank structure that takes two minutes to fill out gets used. A blank spreadsheet does not.

We put together six free time tracking templates covering everything from basic timesheets to invoicing tools that turn logged hours into client bills. Each one is free to download and ready to adapt for your team or your own workflow.

1. Timesheet Template for Excel

A timesheet is the foundation of any time tracking system. It records who worked, what they worked on and for how long over a given period. Without it, billing is based on recollection and project cost tracking is guesswork. With it, you have an accurate record that supports payroll, client billing and resource planning.

This Excel timesheet template breaks hours down by day and task, with columns for the project name, task description and hours logged each day of the week. Totals calculate automatically so you get an accurate weekly summary without any manual math. It covers the standard format that payroll and billing processes expect, so the data is ready to use as soon as it is filled in.

The right starting point for any team or individual that needs to start tracking time consistently, or anyone who has been using a timesheet that takes too long to fill out each week.

2. Time Blocking Template for Excel

Time blocking is the practice of scheduling specific work into dedicated time slots rather than working from an open-ended task list. The difference is significant: a task list tells you what to do, but not when you will do it, which makes it easy to defer the hard work in favor of whatever feels most urgent. A time block commits you to a specific window for a specific type of work.

This Excel template gives you a weekly grid of time blocks across each day, with rows for different types of work: focused tasks, meetings, administrative work and breaks. You fill in the blocks in advance, which forces you to see how much time is actually available versus how much work you are planning to do. Gaps between reality and the plan show up immediately.

Particularly useful for anyone who finds the day constantly hijacked by reactive work, or for managers who want to protect time for strategic thinking without letting the calendar fill up with meetings by default.

Track Your Team’s Time Automatically With ProjectManager

A timesheet template works. ProjectManager works better. Team members log hours directly on their tasks, and managers see real-time labor costs without chasing anyone for a filled-in spreadsheet. Timesheets submit with one click and can be locked once approved. Try it free for 30 days.

3. Work Log Template for Excel

A work log is a running record of what was done, when it was done and how long it took. Where a timesheet is typically submitted weekly and attached to payroll or billing cycles, a work log is updated continuously and serves as a reference for anyone who needs to know what happened on a project and when. It is particularly useful when scope questions come up or when a project needs to be handed off mid-stream.

This Excel template records tasks in chronological order with columns for date, team member, task description, hours spent and status. It is simple enough to update daily in a few minutes and detailed enough to give any stakeholder a clear picture of how the project’s time has been spent to date.

Useful for project managers who need a running audit trail, consultants who log deliverables by client or any team where accountability over how time is spent matters as much as the outcome itself.

4. Weekly Billing Format for Word

A weekly billing format structures the hours worked during a week into a format ready to send to a client. It bridges the gap between internal time tracking and external invoicing: you have the hours in your timesheet, and you need to present them in a way a client can review, approve and pay. A consistent format also makes your billing look professional rather than improvised.

This Word template lays out the week’s billable hours by service or task, with columns for description, rate, hours and total. It is formatted as a client-facing document rather than an internal spreadsheet, so you can fill in the hours from your timesheet and send it directly without reformatting anything.

Best for freelancers, consultants and agencies that bill on a weekly retainer or track billable hours against a client budget and need a clean, consistent document to send alongside or in place of a formal invoice.

5. Freelance Invoice Template for Excel

Once the hours are tracked, the next step is getting paid for them. A freelance invoice takes the hours logged during a project or billing period and turns them into a formal payment request. Without a consistent invoice format, you risk looking unprofessional, leaving out information that delays payment or recreating the same document from scratch every time you bill a client.

This Excel invoice template includes all the standard fields a client expects: your business details, the client’s information, an itemized list of services with hours and rates, a subtotal, tax fields and a total due. It is clean enough to send to a corporate client and simple enough to complete in five minutes once the work is done.

The right tool for any freelancer or independent contractor who bills by the hour and wants a professional invoice they can fill out quickly and send without building one from scratch each time.

6. Service Invoice Template for Word

A service invoice documents the work delivered to a client and the amount owed for it. For service businesses where the product is time and expertise rather than a physical item, the invoice is the only formal record of what was delivered. A clear, professional invoice reduces back-and-forth with clients and gets you paid faster than a vague one does.

This Word invoice template covers the standard structure for a service business: invoice number, date, client details, a line-item breakdown of services rendered, payment terms and total due. It is formatted in Word so you can customize the language and branding without adjusting a spreadsheet formula.

Works for any service provider: marketing agencies, IT consultants, coaches, accountants or anyone billing a client for work performed during a defined period.

Track Time and Bill Clients With ProjectManager

Templates get the hours on paper. The limitation is that every update is manual: someone fills out the sheet, submits it, and a manager reconciles it against the project plan. ProjectManager connects time tracking directly to the work so hours log automatically as tasks are completed, labor costs update in real time and the data you need for billing or reporting is always current.

For teams that bill clients or track project costs against a budget, that connection between hours worked and project data is the difference between time tracking that informs decisions and time tracking that just creates paperwork.

Submit and Approve Timesheets in One Click

ProjectManager’s online timesheets let team members log hours directly on their tasks without filling out a separate document. Hours populate automatically from task assignments, so there is less for each person to fill in and less chance of data getting lost between the task and the sheet. Managers can review, comment on and lock timesheets once approved, giving you an accurate labor cost record for every project period without the back-and-forth of chasing spreadsheet submissions.

See Labor Costs Against Your Budget in Real Time

Knowing how many hours were worked is only useful if you can see what those hours cost relative to what was planned. ProjectManager’s dashboard pulls live timesheet data into project-level budget tracking, so you can see planned versus actual labor costs at any point during the project. When a team is running over on hours, you see it in time to act, not after the invoice is already sent.

Related Content

• 8 Free Work Schedule Templates for Excel
• 25 Free Project Management Templates for Excel
• 10 Free Status Report Templates for Word and Excel
• 7 Free Project Diagram Templates for Excel and Word
• 10 Free Small Business Plan Templates for Excel and Word

The post 6 Free Time Tracking Templates for Excel appeared first on ProjectManager.

To better understand how teams are navigating this challenge, ProjectManager surveyed 142 project management professionals about how they reconcile project and financial data, with a specific focus on time tracking and billable hours. What we found paints a clear picture of an industry in transition.

Noteworthy Survey Findings from the Financial Management Survey

Today’s project managers can no longer solely focus on bringing projects in on time and on budget. As organizations demand greater accountability, project managers are increasingly expected to be financially fluent, not just operationally sharp. Projects shouldn’t just finish on schedule; they should produce measurable value for the company and its stakeholders.

However, most teams aren’t set up to do that efficiently. Over half of respondents (54%) are still relying on Excel or spreadsheets as their dominant financial system and 89% spend at least some time every month manually duplicating or reconciling project and financial data. More than a quarter of those respondents spend over 10 hours a month on that work alone.

The result is delayed reporting, financial blind spots and an operational cost that compounds quietly in the background, one manual entry at a time.

Biggest Issues in Project Financial Management Processes

Manual data reconciliation continues to be a widespread challenge. Nearly nine in 10 respondents (89%) reported spending time each month duplicating or reconciling project and financial information across systems. More than one-quarter (27%) spend over 10 hours per month on these activities, highlighting the operational cost of disconnected project management and accounting tools.

When asked to name the single biggest problem with their current process, delayed reporting and lack of visibility topped the list, cited by 35 respondents. Financial errors and reconciliation issues and high operational costs from manual effort tied for second, each flagged by 29 respondents. Audit and compliance risk concerned 14 respondents, while 12 said they avoid syncing systems altogether because the process is too complex.

Together, these findings reinforce a clear pattern: disconnected tools don’t just create extra work, they create blind spots. When project and financial data live in separate systems, teams can’t see what’s happening in real time, mistakes slip through the cracks and the cost of keeping everything aligned falls on the people doing the work manually.

“It’s not only about having a financial plan, but having systems in place where things are tracked, added to and approved,” says Jennifer Bridges, PMP.

Top Priorities in Project Financial Management

We asked respondents which data connections would be most valuable in a project management integration. The most desired integrations are project-job data and budget vs. actual visibility.

Priority 1: Connect Projects to Financial Outcomes

Most respondents gave a strong signal that people don’t simply want accounting data inside their project management software. Instead, they want to determine which projects are profitable, how much has been spent against budget, which projects are falling behind financially and the financial impact of each project.

Respondents aren’t simply looking to move information between systems; they want to understand how project performance affects financial performance.

For many organizations, project information lives in one system while budgets, costs and revenue reside in another. This separation makes it difficult to answer critical business questions such as:

• Is this project on budget?
• How much has been spent compared to what was planned?
• Which projects are generating the highest margins?
• Where are cost overruns occurring?
• How will project delays impact profitability?

Without integrated data, answering these questions often requires manual reporting, spreadsheet exports and time-consuming reconciliation efforts.

Priority 2: Connect Project Work to Customers

The fact that customers/clients (74 responses) ranked among the most valuable data connections suggests organizations want to bridge the gap between project delivery and customer management.

Traditionally, project management systems focus on work, while accounting systems focus on transactions. When customer data is disconnected, teams struggle to answer basic questions such as:

Which projects belong to which customers?

• What work is currently underway for a specific client?
• How much revenue has a customer generated across projects?
• Which customers are the most profitable?
• Are there unpaid invoices associated with active projects?

By integrating customer records with project data, organizations can gain a more complete view of client relationships. Project managers can better understand customer commitments, finance teams can connect billing activity to project progress and leadership can evaluate customer profitability at a portfolio level.

The result isn’t simply operational efficiency. It creates one source of truth that helps organizations make more informed decisions about resource allocation, customer retention and future business opportunities.

Priority 3: Cash Flow Visibility

One of the more revealing findings is that respondents rated payments & invoice status (74 responses) and expenses (63 responses) higher than invoices (50 responses).

This highlights an important distinction between accounting processes and business visibility.

Many organizations already have systems for creating invoices, but they often lack visibility into the financial health of projects after invoices are sent.

Respondents appear to be asking questions such as:

• Has the customer paid yet?
• How much outstanding revenue is tied to this project?
• Are project expenses growing faster than expected?
• Will this project remain profitable?
• Are we likely to exceed the budget before completion?

In other words, they want insight into financial outcomes rather than tools for completing accounting tasks. This data shows that organizations increasingly view project management and financial management as interconnected disciplines. Rather than simply synchronizing records between systems, they want real-time visibility into project financial performance, cash flow and profitability.

What Comes Next for Project Financial Reconciliation?

Teams cannot simply continue to rely on outdated and unreliable methods of tracking project financials. There’s too much at stake, and too much money on the line. So where do we go from here?

If teams continue to do nothing and work using Excel and manual imports, only more money is lost. On the other hand, they can pay for an expensive ERP set up and endure a lengthy roll out.

However, there’s another option. Sign up a free trial of ProjectManager, a powerful tool with a native QuickBooks Online integration. This integration automatically syncs approved hours and actual task costs, helping your team spend less time entering data and more time managing profitable projects. It’s a way to keep prices low with reliable data.

As Justin Smith, Director at Construc, said “We could start tracking our projects and making more accurate quotes. It was fantastic.”

Whether you already use ProjectManager, or you’re looking for a project management platform that connects the work your team does with the accounting system your business runs on, this integration helps bring project and financial data together. Explore our homepage or read more information on our QuickBooks Online integration.

The post The State of Project Financial Management: Survey Findings from 142 PMs appeared first on ProjectManager.

Job management is a process used to plan, assign, schedule and track individual jobs from start to completion. It is commonly used in construction, manufacturing, maintenance and field service operations to coordinate work, control costs and ensure tasks are completed on time. It connects planning with execution by organizing resources, timelines and job data in one workflow.

ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software that helps teams across industries plan, schedule and track work from start to finish. Create detailed job schedules, manage resources, monitor costs and compare planned versus actual performance with a full suite of powerful tools including Gantt charts, kanban boards, real-time dashboards and much more. Get started for free today.

What Industries Use Job Management?

Across operations-driven environments, work is often organized into individual jobs that must be planned, scheduled and completed efficiently. Job management is used in industries where teams handle repeatable or service-based tasks, rely on coordination between people and resources and need clear visibility into progress, timelines and costs.

Construction

On any construction project, work is broken down into clearly defined jobs such as excavation, framing, electrical installation and inspections. Managing those jobs requires tight coordination between crews, subcontractors and equipment. Job management helps organize schedules, assign responsibilities, track progress and control costs so projects stay on timeline and avoid delays caused by miscommunication or poor planning.

Manufacturing

Production environments rely on repeatable jobs like machining, assembly and quality checks that must follow a precise sequence. Each job depends on materials, labor and machine availability, which creates scheduling pressure. Job management ensures that work orders are prioritized correctly, resources are allocated efficiently and production flows without bottlenecks that can slow output or increase operating costs.

Field Service Management

Service-based businesses operate around individual jobs such as repairs, installations and maintenance visits performed at customer locations. Dispatching technicians, managing service windows and tracking job status are critical for meeting stakeholder expectations. Job management allows teams to assign work quickly, monitor technician activity and close jobs efficiently while maintaining accurate records for billing and follow-ups.

Maintenance and Facilities Management

Ongoing operations depend on maintenance jobs like inspections, preventive servicing and emergency repairs to keep assets running. These tasks must be scheduled around usage, downtime and resource availability. Job management provides visibility into upcoming work, tracks completed tasks and helps teams respond faster to issues while reducing the risk of equipment failure or operational disruption.

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Job Card Template

Use this free Job Card Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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Job Management Phases

Work doesn’t move forward by accident. Breaking jobs into structured phases gives teams a clear path from initial request to final delivery, helping coordinate resources, control costs and keep project timelines realistic as work progresses.

Job Planning

The process starts with job planning, where teams define the scope of work, identify required materials, assign responsibilities and outline how the job will be completed. Getting this step right prevents confusion later and gives everyone a clear understanding of what needs to happen before execution begins.

Job Costing

With the plan in place, attention shifts to job costing, which involves estimating labor, materials and equipment expenses tied to the work. Establishing accurate costs early helps set budgets, supports pricing decisions and reduces the likelihood of unexpected overruns during execution.

Job Scheduling

After costs are defined, job scheduling organizes tasks into a timeline and assigns them to the right people and resources. This step ensures that work happens in the correct sequence, avoids conflicts and keeps teams aligned on deadlines and priorities.

Job Tracking

As work progresses, job tracking provides visibility into what’s been completed, what’s in progress and what’s falling behind. Monitoring performance in real time allows teams to adjust workloads, resolve issues quickly and keep the job moving according to plan.

Job Reporting

Once the job is underway or completed, job reporting captures key details such as work performed, costs, issues and outcomes. These records support decision-making, help evaluate performance and provide documentation for billing, audits or future planning.

What Is Job Management Software?

Job management software is a digital tool used to plan, schedule, assign and track jobs from start to completion. It is commonly used in construction, manufacturing and field service operations to coordinate teams, manage workloads and monitor project progress in real time. It centralizes job data, helping teams stay organized and make faster decisions during execution.

Key Features of Job Management Software

Different tools support job execution in different ways, but most platforms are built around a core set of features that help teams plan work, organize tasks and maintain visibility as jobs move forward.

Gantt Charts

When timelines start getting complex, Gantt charts provide a clear visual of how jobs unfold over time. Teams can map out tasks, set durations and define dependencies between activities. This makes it easier to adjust schedules, prevent overlaps and keep work flowing in the right sequence as priorities or conditions change.

Kanban Boards

For teams managing multiple jobs at once, kanban boards offer a flexible way to track work as it moves through different stages. Tasks are organized into columns such as planned, in progress and completed, making it easy to spot bottlenecks and balance workloads without needing to constantly update detailed schedules.

Task Lists

At a more granular level, task lists break jobs down into actionable steps that can be assigned and tracked individually. Each task includes details like deadlines, assignees and status updates, giving teams a straightforward way to manage daily work and ensure nothing falls through the cracks during execution.

Job Tracking Dashboards

As jobs move forward, dashboards give teams a real-time snapshot of progress, workload and performance across multiple jobs. Visual metrics make it easier to spot delays, monitor task completion and understand where attention is needed. Instead of digging through reports, teams can quickly assess status and make informed decisions to keep work on track.

Cost Estimating & Tracking

Before work begins, a good job management software should allow users to estimate the cost of the resources needed to execute a job, including labor, materials, equipment and components. During execution, it should also compare estimated costs against actual job costs, helping teams determine whether they are staying within budget or impacting overall profitability.

Resource Management

Coordinating people and equipment requires tools that make resource allocation visible and manageable. Features like workload charts, timesheets and performance dashboards help teams assign work efficiently and monitor utilization. Tracking resource costs alongside availability allows organizations to balance workloads, avoid overuse and maintain control over expenses throughout the job lifecycle.

Job Management Documents

Clear documentation keeps jobs organized, repeatable and accountable. Each phase relies on specific documents to define scope, schedule work, track costs and record outcomes. Without them, teams rely on assumptions, which leads to delays, errors and budget issues. Standardized documents ensure consistency, improve communication and create reliable records for planning, execution and analysis.

Job Planning

• Scope of Work: Describes what the job includes, outlining tasks, deliverables and boundaries so teams understand exactly what needs to be completed and what falls outside the job.
• Work Order: Provides a structured summary of the job, including instructions, assigned personnel and required resources, serving as the main reference for execution.
• Material Requisition Form: Lists materials needed for the job and authorizes their request, ensuring teams have what they need before work begins.
• Equipment List: Identifies tools and machinery required to complete the job, helping teams prepare and avoid delays caused by missing equipment.
• Resource Plan: Outlines how labor and equipment will be allocated, ensuring the right people and assets are available when needed.

Job Scheduling

• Job Schedule: Organizes tasks into a timeline, showing when each activity should start and finish to keep work on track.
• Gantt Chart: Visualizes the job schedule with task durations and dependencies, making it easier to manage sequencing and adjust timelines.
• Work Plan: Breaks down the job into actionable steps with assigned responsibilities and deadlines to guide execution.
• Crew Schedule: Assigns workers to specific shifts or tasks, helping balance workloads and ensure coverage across the job.
• Shift Calendar: Maps out working hours and shifts over time, helping coordinate labor availability and avoid scheduling conflicts.

Job Costing

• Cost Estimate Sheet: Calculates expected costs for labor, materials and equipment before the job starts to establish a budget.
• Job Cost Sheet: Tracks actual expenses as the job progresses, allowing teams to compare against estimates.
• Labor Cost Log: Records hours worked and associated wages to monitor labor spending throughout the job.
• Materials Cost Tracker: Tracks the cost and usage of materials to prevent overspending and ensure accurate accounting.
• Equipment Cost Log: Captures costs related to equipment usage, rental or maintenance tied to the job.

Job Tracking

• Task List: Breaks the job into individual tasks that can be assigned and tracked to ensure steady progress.
• Timesheet: Records time spent by workers on tasks, providing visibility into labor usage and productivity.
• Progress Report: Summarizes the current status of the job, highlighting completed work and any delays.
• Daily Log: Documents day-to-day activities, issues and conditions to maintain a continuous record of job execution.
• Issue Log: Tracks problems that arise during the job and documents how they are resolved.

Job Reporting

• Job Report: Provides a full summary of the job, including work performed, resources used and overall outcomes.
• Completion Report: Confirms that all job requirements have been met and documents final results.
• Performance Report: Evaluates how the job performed against schedule, cost and quality expectations.
• Downtime Report: Records periods when work stopped and explains the reasons, helping identify inefficiencies.
• Maintenance Report: Documents maintenance work completed, including actions taken and the condition of equipment afterward.

Free Job Management Templates

If you’re not ready for job management software yet, try exploring our library of free templates. We’ve created over 100 project management templates for Excel, Word and Google Sheets. Here are some that can help with job scheduling.

Job Card Template

A job card template helps teams document job details, including tasks, assigned workers, materials and status updates. It creates a clear record that improves communication, accountability and job tracking.

Gantt Chart Template

A Gantt chart template helps teams plan job timelines by organizing tasks, durations and dependencies in a visual schedule. It improves coordination, prevents delays and keeps work aligned.

Kanban Board Template

A kanban board template helps teams manage jobs by organizing tasks into visual workflow stages. It improves visibility, highlights bottlenecks and allows teams to track progress efficiently.

ProjectManager Is a Robust Job Management Software

ProjectManager is an online project management solution that provides a complete set of work planning, scheduling and tracking tools, including Gantt charts, kanban boards, task lists and real-time dashboards and reports. With these features, teams across industries can build detailed job schedules, assign resources and monitor progress, costs and timelines.

ProjectManager also delivers AI-powered project insights to support better decision-making and connects with over 100 tools like Microsoft Project, Acumatica and Power BI. With its open API and wide range of integrations, organizations can seamlessly link ProjectManager to their existing systems. Watch the video below to learn more!

Related Job Management Content

• How to Make a Job Cost Report for Construction
• What Is Job Costing? How to Make a Job Cost Sheet (Example Included)
• Job Planning Explained: How to Make a Job Plan
• Job Scheduling 101: Making a Job Schedule
• 10 Best Job Tracking Software of 2026 (Free & Paid)
• Job Card Template
• Job Estimate Template

If you need a tool to help you manage projects, then signup for our software now at ProjectManager. Our online software helps teams across industries plan, track and oversee projects as they unfold. Sign up for a free 30-day trial today!

The post Job Management: Phases, Tools & Documentation appeared first on ProjectManager.

Whenever you’re ready to start managing projects, give ProjectManager a try. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software designed to plan, schedule and track projects from start to finish. Build detailed project schedules, allocate resources, monitor costs and compare estimates against actual performance using a complete set of powerful project management tools. Get started for free today.

1. Vendor List Template

This vendor management template provides a structured table to record and organize all vendor-related data in one place. It includes fields for vendor name, category, products or services, ratings, status, payment terms, contract value and key contact information. By compiling operational, financial and contractual details into a single view, it allows teams to track active suppliers, review agreements and maintain accurate records. This layout supports efficient vendor management, improves visibility and reduces the risk of missing critical supplier information.

2. Supplier Evaluation Form

This vendor management template is designed to standardize how supplier performance is assessed using clearly defined criteria and scoring scales. It combines supplier details with evaluation categories such as quality, delivery, pricing and compliance, enabling consistent scoring across vendors. Each section supports structured data entry and side-by-side comparison, making performance gaps easier to identify. It also includes space for recommendations, allowing teams to document decisions and support vendor selection with clear, data-driven justification.

3. Vendor Scorecard Template

This vendor management template provides a structured framework to evaluate supplier performance across key categories such as quality, delivery, cost, service and compliance. It captures individual scores for each category and automatically calculates averages, applies predefined weightings and generates final performance ratings. By consolidating these calculations into a single view, it enables objective comparison between vendors, highlights performance gaps and supports data-driven decisions for supplier selection, contract renewals and ongoing performance management.

4. Vendor Risk Assessment Template

This vendor management template establishes a standardized method for evaluating supplier risk across categories such as financial stability, operational capability and regulatory compliance. It assigns scores using a defined scale, applies weighted calculations and converts results into an overall risk rating. The template then maps this score to predefined thresholds to determine risk levels, required controls and assessment depth. This structured approach ensures consistent risk evaluation, improves oversight and supports informed decisions when approving or monitoring vendors.

5. Request for Proposal Template

This vendor management template structures how organizations communicate project requirements to vendors and collect comparable bids. It outlines key sections such as project goals, background, scope of work, timeline and budget to ensure vendors fully understand expectations. By standardizing submission instructions and evaluation criteria, it creates a consistent framework for reviewing proposals. This format improves transparency, reduces ambiguity and helps teams select qualified vendors based on clearly defined project needs and measurable factors.

6. Request for Quote Template

This vendor management template organizes pricing requests into a clear, itemized format that captures supplier details, quotation information and product specifications. It includes sections for quantities, descriptions, unit prices, taxes and totals, along with shipping terms and validity dates. By structuring all cost-related data in one place, it enables accurate price comparisons across vendors. This layout supports faster procurement decisions, ensures pricing transparency and reduces the risk of errors when evaluating supplier quotes.

7. Purchase Requisition Form

This purchase requisition form standardizes how internal purchase requests are submitted, reviewed and approved within an organization. It captures tracking details, justification for the request, estimated costs and preferred vendor information in a structured format. By organizing financial and operational data upfront, it ensures approvers have the context needed to evaluate requests efficiently. This approach improves accountability, streamlines the approval process and creates a documented trail for procurement activities and budget control.

8. Purchase Order Template

This vendor management template formalizes the purchasing process by documenting all details required to authorize and track transactions with vendors through purchase orders. It includes company and vendor information, delivery terms, payment conditions and a detailed list of items with quantities and pricing. By consolidating order data into a standardized format, it ensures clarity between buyers and suppliers. This structure reduces misunderstandings, supports accurate order fulfillment and creates a legally binding record once approved and signed.

ProjectManager Is an Award-Winning Project Management Software

ProjectManager offers robust project management features such as Gantt charts, task lists, workload management charts, timesheets and real-time dashboards and reports. In addition to that, it’s also equipped with AI project insights, online team collaboration features and unlimited file storage that further help project managers ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Watch the video to learn more!

Related Content

• What Is Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)?
• Supplier Evaluation Form
• Vendor Management: A Quick Guide
• 8 Procurement Documents (With Free Templates)
• An Introduction to Supply Chain Management (SCM)

If you need a tool to help you manage projects, then signup for our software now at ProjectManager. Our online software helps teams across industries plan, track and oversee projects as they unfold. Sign up for a free 30-day trial today!

The post 8 Free Vendor Management Templates for Excel and Word appeared first on ProjectManager.

Budget spreadsheets for Excel or Google Sheets are useful, but whenever you’re ready to make a budget for personal, professional or business projects, try ProjectManager instead. ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software equipped with advanced cost management features that allow organizations to create detailed project schedules, estimate costs, establish a budget, allocate resources and track costs in real time as work is executed. Get started for free today.

1. Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A budget spreadsheet is a financial planning document used to organize income and expenses within a defined period. It helps individuals, teams and organizations estimate spending, track financial activity and compare planned versus actual amounts. By structuring financial data into clear rows and columns, a budgeting spreadsheet makes budget management, cost tracking and financial planning easier to monitor and control.

This free budget spreadsheet template allows individuals and small business owners to record income, log expenses and monitor how those transactions affect their available budget throughout the budgeting period. As entries are added, built-in formulas automatically update totals, calculate variances and adjust the remaining balance, giving users a simple way to maintain ongoing budget tracking.

• Date: Records when each income or expense occurs so transactions remain tied to the selected budgeting period and can be reviewed in chronological order.
• Category: Organizes entries into financial groupings that help users evaluate spending patterns, identify priorities and summarize budget activity across different areas.
• Expense/Income Type: Specifies whether a transaction represents incoming funds or an expense, clarifying how the entry impacts the available budget balance.
• Description: Provides a short explanation of the transaction so individual income sources or expenses remain easy to identify during budget reviews.
• Frequency: Indicates how often the transaction occurs—such as weekly, monthly or one-time—supporting recurring expense planning and long-term budgeting.
• Budgeted Amount: Displays the planned financial amount assigned to an income source or expense category, serving as the target used for budget planning.
• Actual Amount: Records the real amount earned or spent during the budgeting period, allowing users to track financial performance against the planned budget.
• Difference: Automatically calculates the variance between the planned and actual values, highlighting overspending, underspending or potential savings.
• Notes: Offers space to document additional context, explanations or reminders that help clarify transactions during financial reviews.

2. Construction Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A construction budget is a financial plan used to estimate and control the costs required to complete a construction project. It organizes expected spending across categories such as labor, materials, equipment, subcontractors and overhead so project teams can allocate resources, monitor construction costs and maintain financial control throughout the building process.

This construction budget spreadsheet organizes project costs using a work breakdown structure that lists construction tasks and assigns responsibility. Users enter labor hours, hourly rates, materials quantities and equipment costs. The template calculates totals automatically and compares budgeted versus actual costs to highlight whether the project remains under or over budget.

3. Budget Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets

Within most organizations, a budget spreadsheet acts as the central document for planning, organizing and reviewing financial activity across a defined timeframe. Teams use it to estimate expenses, allocate funds, monitor spending patterns and compare estimated costs against real financial performance throughout the year.

This free budgeting spreadsheet template organizes annual financial planning by category while distributing estimated and actual costs across every month of the year. Users enter quantities, unit costs and recurrence types, allowing the spreadsheet to calculate totals automatically while showing how spending evolves throughout the budgeting cycle.

• Company and date header: Identifies the organization responsible for the budget and establishes the timeframe used to organize all financial planning and tracking activities.
• Category section: Groups expenses into major operational areas such as staffing, hardware, cybersecurity, software and project costs to improve financial analysis.
• Quantity and cost per unit fields: Capture purchase management details for each item or service so estimated costs can be calculated consistently across the budget.
• Estimated cost and recurrence column: Defines the planned financial commitment for each line item and indicates whether the cost occurs monthly, annually or once.
• Monthly estimated and actual columns: Allow users to monitor how spending unfolds each month while comparing projections against real financial activity.
• Total annual budget calculation: Automatically aggregates the full year of estimated spending across categories to provide a clear overview of total planned costs.
• Notes column: Provides additional context about purchases, assumptions or financial decisions that may affect how the budget is interpreted later.

4. Budget Dashboard Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A project budget is a financial plan that estimates how much money a project will require across different cost categories such as labor, materials, equipment and overhead. It helps project managers allocate funds, monitor financial performance and maintain cost control throughout the project lifecycle.

This budget dashboard template summarizes project cost data using charts and visual reports. The template aggregates totals for direct materials, labor, equipment and overhead, then compares planned versus actual costs. As financial data is updated, charts automatically display cost distribution, variances and the remaining balance across budget categories.

5. Budget Dashboard Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets

This template follows the exact same structure as the Excel version, using visual charts and summary tables to display planned costs, actual spending and budget balances across project categories. The advantage of using Google Sheets is that teams can access the budget dashboard online, collaborate in real time and update financial data simultaneously from any device.

6. Project Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A project budget is a financial plan that estimates the total cost required to complete a project. It outlines expected spending across categories such as labor, materials, equipment and other expenses so project managers can allocate resources, monitor financial performance and control costs throughout the project lifecycle.

This project budget spreadsheet organizes project costs by task using a work breakdown structure (WBS). Users assign tasks, estimate labor hours, input hourly rates and record material or fixed expenses. As actual costs are entered, the sheet compares budgeted versus actual spending and automatically calculates under- or over-budget balances.

7. Project Budget Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets

Structurally, this template mirrors the Excel project budget spreadsheet described earlier, using the same task-based layout, labor calculations and cost tracking columns. The difference is that it runs in Google Sheets, which allows teams to collaborate online, update budget data simultaneously and access project financial information from any device with real-time synchronization.

For managing financial documents and plan resources effectively, exploring dedicated budgeting and forecasting tools on G2 can also help streamline decision-making and improve long-term strategic outcomes.

8. Event Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

An event budget is a financial planning tool used to estimate and manage the costs required to organize and deliver an event. It organizes expected expenses across categories such as venue rental, vendors, equipment, travel, marketing and staffing so planners can allocate funds, track spending and keep the event within budget.

This event budgeting spreadsheet organizes expenses by event categories such as venue, equipment, travel and marketing. Users list vendors or contractors, estimate labor and material costs and track actual spending as the event progresses. Subtotals calculate automatically, helping event planners monitor total costs and maintain control over the event budget.

9. Event Budget Spreadsheet Template for Google Sheets

This template uses the same structure as the Excel event budget spreadsheet described above, organizing event costs by category, vendor and cost type while calculating totals and subtotals automatically. The advantage of using Google Sheets is that event teams can collaborate in real time, update expenses simultaneously and access the budget dashboard from any device with an internet connection.

10. 50/30/20 Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A 50/30/20 budget is a personal financial planning framework that divides income into three spending categories. Fifty percent covers essential living expenses, thirty percent supports discretionary spending and twenty percent is allocated to savings or debt reduction. This personal budgeting method helps individuals balance daily costs, lifestyle spending and long-term financial goals.

This 50/30/20 budget spreadsheet begins with monthly after-tax income and automatically distributes available funds into the three budgeting categories. Users list specific expenses under needs, wants and savings sections while the template calculates totals, shows available funds and highlights whether each category remains within its recommended spending limit.

11. 70/20/10 Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

The 70/20/10 budget is a financial planning method that divides income into three priorities: seventy percent for living expenses, twenty percent for financial goals and ten percent for lifestyle spending. This approach helps individuals structure spending decisions while maintaining a balance between essential costs, savings priorities and discretionary expenses.

This 70/20/10 budget spreadsheet starts by recording monthly income after taxes and then allocates funds into living expenses, financial goals and lifestyle categories. Users enter spending items such as housing, groceries, retirement savings and entertainment while the template calculates totals and displays whether spending remains within each budget allocation.

12. Zero-Based Budget Spreadsheet Template for Excel

A zero-based budget is a budgeting method where every dollar of income is assigned to a specific purpose until the remaining balance equals zero. Instead of estimating spending loosely, this approach requires individuals to justify each expense category so total income minus total allocations results in a fully planned financial plan.

This zero-based budget spreadsheet starts with total monthly income and assigns every dollar to a specific expense category. Users enter spending amounts for housing, transportation, insurance, savings and discretionary costs. The template totals all expenses and compares them against income to ensure the final balance equals zero.

ProjectManager Offers Robust Budgeting and Cost Management Features

ProjectManager is an award-winning project management software equipped with workload management charts, timesheets, real-time project and portfolio management dashboards and reports that allow organizations to create project budgets, compare their estimates against actual project costs and monitor expenses at the task level. Watch the video to learn more!

Related Budgeting Content

• 5 Personal Budget Templates for Excel (Free Download)
• How to Make a Budget Plan for Personal Finance Management
• 18 Budget Templates for Business & Project Budgeting
• How to Make a Project Budget: Project Budgeting Basics (Templates Included)
• How to Manage a Project Budget with Project Budgeting Software

ProjectManager is award-winning software that allows organizations across industries to manage projects from start to finish. Our collaborative platform connects everyone on the project team and lets them work with the tools they want. Plan, monitor and report on every aspect of your projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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