Project management is a field in which a variety of techniques and tools are implemented to analyze the viability of a project and its successful implementation. Project managers always rely on excel spreadsheet templates or for large projects they even buy expensive project management software to do the needful.

From ProjectSpreadsheet.com you can download various templates/tools of spreadsheet and develop your financial management plan.

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What is the spreadsheet Template and why it is important?

Project management spreadsheets are equally useful in all phases of project management. Let’s financial project management spreadsheet templates example overview.

  1. Balance sheet
  2. Income statement spreadsheet
  3. Small Business inventory management spreadsheet
  4. Expense Budget
  5. Money Management & Bank Management system spreadsheet
  6. Bookkeeping & Payment tracking Spreadsheet

In this article, we are discussing 4 main types of spreadsheet template, project manager usually using nowadays.

  1. Tracking Spreadsheet
  2. Financial Analysis Spreadsheet
  3. Project Management
  4. Business Management

Types of Project Spreadsheet Templates:

Project management spreadsheets serve the purpose of all types of project management techniques and tools. Therefore, it can be of many types. Basic classification of project management excel spreadsheets is;

  1. Project Financial Analysis/Reporting Spreadsheets
  2. Project Planning Spreadsheets
  3. Project Tracking Spreadsheets

Let’s discuss the further division of each type of project management spreadsheet;

Project Management Spreadsheet Template:

Project management spreadsheets are the templates that assist project managers in project definition, planning, execution, and closure. These are easiest to use, effective and can be customized as per project need. More than 50 domains come under the head of project management and these templates are equally useful in all the domains.

It is important for project managers to spend more time on critical thinking than making formats and sheets for managing details. Therefore, project management spreadsheets are very handy as it saves a lot of time and effort that can be utilized in other critical activities of project management. The importance of project management spreadsheets can easily be understood by having a look at their application range. Following are the major domains of project management which use excel spreadsheets to serve a different purpose;

  1. Project Integration Management
  2. Project Scope Management
  3. Project Schedule Management
  4. Project Cost Management
  5. Project Quality Management
  6. Project Resource Management
  7. Project Communication Management
  8. Project Risk Management
  9. Project Procurement Management
  10. Project Stakeholder Management

When it comes to buying expensive project management software, even in those complex projects all initial working is developed based on these spreadsheets. It requires a different type of analysis such as economical, technical, market, operational and organizational to make project feasibility study based on which funds are requested from investors.

Unless a project has funds in hand, purchasing a project management software isn’t possible in most of the cases. It shows the importance of project management spreadsheets in all types of projects simple or complex as all the primary work and in a small project the detailed work is performed using these templates.

Project management spreadsheets’ importance is well explained in the above section. It is important to understand which project management spreadsheet should be used for which type of project. As there is a number of project management spreadsheets available online to serve the same purpose but using a project-specific spreadsheet always be effective and saves a lot of time.

Picking a wrong spreadsheet may cause trouble at later stages as it may have missed some crucial information related to the project or may result in a waste of time in customizing it to suit the best for the subject project. The key features of an effective project management spreadsheet are;

  1. Easily available to help in each domain of project management.
  2. Easy to use and can be customized as per project need.
  3. Carries all information necessary to represent a particular type of project management technique or tool.
  4. Help in all phases of project management such as initiation, planning, execution, and closure.
  5. Equally suitable for all projects regardless of project scale.
  6. Available for all types of projects such a construction, mechanical or software-related projects.
  7. Save a lot of time and efforts
  8. Assist to focus on project complexities instead of wasting time on the drafting of tracking or planning sheets.

Project Financial Analysis/Reporting Spreadsheet:

These are the type of spreadsheets that are used to present some information for the reporting purpose, or the results of analysis been performed. Most common project analysis/reporting spreadsheets and their further division is given below;

  1. Project feasibility study spreadsheet includes reports of project economic, technical, marketing, operational and organizational analysis.
  2. Project Outline Report Spreadsheet
  3. Project timeline, dependencies, critical path analysis, milestone trend analysis, and PERT analysis are the main type of project scheduling spreadsheets.
  4. Project Progress or Status Report Spreadsheet
  5. Project risk management analysis spreadsheets are quantitative risk analysis, qualitative risk analysis, root cause analysis, and mitigation strategies.

Project Planning Spreadsheets:

These project management spreadsheets are used to develop project tracking spreadsheets. These are developed at the planning phase of project management. Such spreadsheets are used to make sure all the aspects of the project have been monitored and calculated carefully before going to the project execution phase. The most common type of project planning spreadsheets are;

  1. Project scheduling spreadsheets include planner spreadsheets such as timeline, activities, milestone and action planner.
  2. Project risk planning spreadsheets are risk mitigation and contingency plans.
  3. Project resource planning spreadsheets include planners in the form of resource allocation, availability, capacity, and vacation planners.
  4. Project stakeholder planning spreadsheets are used in the form of stakeholder engagement, mapping and communication planning sheets.
  5. Project cost management spreadsheets contain the budget, cost, and risk profit analysis plans.

Project Tracking Spreadsheet:

These types of spreadsheets are extracted from planning spreadsheets to monitor and control the project domain during execution over the project lifecycle. Most commonly used project trackers are;

  1. The project dashboard spreadsheet takes information from resource supply, demand and availability spreadsheets. It also includes multiple projects and project progress tracking sheets.
  2. Project schedule tracking means tracking project timeline, milestone and critical path using tracker spreadsheets for each.
  3. Project risk tracking can be performed using risk and issue tracker spreadsheets.
  4. Project communication tracking spreadsheets are used for tracking documents, progress and meeting schedules.
  5. Project quality or performance tracking spreadsheets
  6. Project costs can be tracked using the project budget and risk profit trackers.

Project management spreadsheets aren’t just limited to the above-mentioned spreadsheets. These are the most commonly and easily available project management spreadsheet for different scale and types of projects. One can easily develop an excel spreadsheet for all types of project management tasks.