9 Free Sales Forecast Templates for Small Business
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Bianca is a staff writer at Fit Small Business who specializes in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on Sales Management.
There are different free sales forecast templates available for Excel and Google spreadsheets and through customer relationship management software. These tools help you create projections you can use for things like goal setting, performance measurement, budgeting, projecting growth, obtaining financing, and attracting investors.
To save you time, we’ve compiled nine free forecast templates you can download below. Each downloadable file contains an example forecast that you can use as reference. We also included a blank template that you can copy and fill in with your own sales data.
1. Simple Sales Forecast Template
Our free simple sales forecast template will help you get started with sales estimates to plan and grow your business. This multi-year projection sheet can be modified in either Google Sheets or Excel. It can also generate future revenue estimates based on units sold, pipeline growth percentages, lead conversion rates, and your product pricing. This gives you an idea of how much your business can grow sales-wise in the next few years.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
2. Long-term Sales Forecast Template
Part of creating a sales plan is forecasting long-term revenue goals and sales projections, then laying out the strategies and tactics you’ll use to hit your performance goals. Long-term sales projection templates usually provide three- to five-year projections. These templates are accessible in both Excel and Google Sheets.
Long-term sales forecast templates are best for businesses looking to scale and want insights about how much working capital they can expect to be able to tap into for growth initiatives. This type of sales projection template is also often required when applying for commercial loans or through other channels such as outside investors or crowdfunding.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
3. Budget Sales Forecast Template
A budget sales forecast template shows expense estimates in relation to revenue to calculate how much you will be able to spend during a specified period of time. Budget templates allow you to enter income projections and available cash to indicate your spending capabilities for that period of time.
This type of template is best for new and growing businesses trying to figure out their future available expenditures. Additionally, businesses interested in making a large asset purchase, such as a company vehicle, piece of equipment, or commercial real estate, can use this template to see how much of the asset can be self-financed.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
4. Month-to-Month Sales Forecast Template
The month-to-month (or monthly) sales projection template shows sales projections for a year divided into monthly increments. This type of revenue forecast template makes it easier to estimate your incoming revenue. This is because you can break down your pricing model, such as the average number units sold, on a monthly rather than an annual basis.
Month-to-month forecast example
This template is best for seasonal businesses that experience significant revenue fluctuations in some months compared to others. It’s also appropriate for businesses that want to view rolling 12-month projections as a key performance indicator (KPI). You can also use it to project one-year sales estimates before implementing major campaigns or initiatives, such as a growth strategy.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
5. Individual Product Sales Forecast Template
An individual product sales projection template can be used by businesses that sell one product or service or for projecting sales of a new (or any single) product or service. This forecast indicates how you expect the product to perform based on units sold and the price per unit monthly.
Individual product forecast example
An individual product forecast template benefits businesses that sell a product either through a storefront or ecommerce medium. It is useful for current businesses adding a new product to their arsenal that want to estimate sales exclusively for that product. It is also recommended for companies that need to track individual performance for the most popular or most profitable products.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
6. Multi-product Sales Forecast Template
This revenue projection template can be used to generate sales projections for a business that sells multiple products. Through this type of template, you can compare the estimated performance of distinct products by tracking the units sold and the price per unit. This will, in turn, yield a total sales revenue estimate.
Multi-product forecast example
The multi-product sales forecast template is best for retail or wholesale businesses selling a variety of products. It can also be used to project revenue of multiple product categories. Here, each “Item” represents a category rather than an individual product, and price per unit is calculated in aggregate.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
7. Retail Sales Forecast Template
A retail sales projection template projects revenue for brick-and-mortar stores since it includes data related to foot traffic. The retail sales template calculates projected revenue by year based on foot traffic, the percentage of foot traffic that enters the store, and the percent of those who convert (make a purchase). Since it has a field for “other revenue,” it can be used by retail stores that also sell online.
Retail forecast example
This template is mostly designed for brick-and-mortar retail businesses. However, combination ecommerce and brick-and-mortar businesses, as well as ecommerce operations, can also use this forecast template. The estimated customers passing store data field can be replaced with website traffic to convert this sales forecast Excel sheet into an ecommerce sales forecasting template.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
8. Subscription-based Sales Forecast Template
Businesses that rely on recurring revenue from sign-ups or contract renewals should use the subscription-based sales projection template. Enter data into the visitor and sign-up fields to show the visitor-to-sign-up conversion rate. Then, enter the number of new customers to show the percentage of sign-ups that convert to paying customers.
This template also helps you track customer churn. It calculates your churn and retention rate based on the number of paying customers at the end of the period compared to the number at the beginning, plus the number of new customers added. Knowing your churn rate is essential, since a high or increasing rate of customer turnover could indicate problems with your organization or its products or services.
How to Calculate Churn Rate:
To manually calculate churn rate, divide the number of lost customers by the total customers at the start of the time period, then multiply the result by 100. For example, if your business had 200 customers at the beginning of January and lost 12 customers by the end, you would divide 12 by 200. The answer is 0.06. Then, multiply that by 100, giving you a 6% monthly churn rate.
Subscription-based forecast example
The fields of this template can be altered for use by contract renewal businesses like insurance agencies, information technology (IT) companies, and payroll processors. For example, subscribers can be replaced with “leads” and new subscribers can be replaced with “presentations,” “free trials,” or “demos.” Then, change the churn rate to “non-renewed contracts” and you’ll be able to estimate new and recurring business revenue year-to-year.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
9. B2B Lead Sales Forecast Template
A business-to-business (B2B) lead forecast template is used to estimate sales revenue from current deal opportunities in the sales pipeline through business leads. Businesses can use estimated deal values and the percent chance of closing those deals to obtain a sales projection.
B2B lead forecast example
This template is best for B2B organizations, aka businesses selling to other businesses or organizations, rather than business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations. It can also be used for direct sales prospecting activities and for businesses that submit business proposals in response to solicitation requests.
Thank you for downloading!
💡 Quick Tip:
ClickUp offers flexible forecasting and sales templates for your team.
- ✓ Free forever, unlimited users
- ✓ Pipeline management
- ✓ Team collaboration
- ✓ Professional workspace templates
CRMs With Built-in Sales Forecasting Features
Spreadsheet-based templates are easy to modify. However, customer relationship management (CRM) systems generally offer more robust tools for managing revenue opportunities that can be converted into sales forecasts. They can be a valuable tool for providing sales predictions on premade charts through the data collected in the system. Below are examples of CRM platforms with built-in sales forecasting features.
HubSpot CRM can instantly create revenue projections or automatically produce these reports for you monthly or quarterly at no additional cost, saving you time and helping your business stay on track.
HubSpot deal forecasting (Source: HubSpot)
Starting price: Free for unlimited users or $45 per month (annual billing) for two users
Pipedrive can take information such as potential deal value and probability of closing for a lead or opportunity to provide sales forecast estimates in highly customizable templates.
Pipedrive weighted deal forecasting (Source: Pipedrive)
Starting price: $14.90 per user, per month (annual billing)
Zoho CRM provides sales forecasting through its native integration with Zoho Analytics, which analyzes and visualizes the data. Users can customize their forecasts by viewing them on different visual channels, including line, bar, and scatter charts.
Zoho Analytics sales prediction (Source: Zoho)
Starting price: Free for three users or $14 per user, per month (annual billing)
Providing the right tools for your sales team to organize leads, communicate with prospects, and analyze sales data is crucial for streamlining a sales operation, one of many responsibilities of a sales manager. Other insights for managing your sales team can be found in our ultimate guide to sales management.
How to Create a Custom Sales Forecast Template
Due to your personal preferences or having a unique business model, you may want to create your own sales forecast template for estimating future business revenues. Creating it requires you to consider your business model, forecast purpose, and sales process to design an easily fillable template. Here’s a step-by-step guide for creating a custom forecast template for your business:
1. Establish Your Source of Sales
First, establish your sources of sales revenue. This is determined based on your business model, and essentially refers to how your business makes money through sales of products or services. Below are some common examples of pricing methods a business can use to make money:
- Price per unit or product
- Subscription pricing (monthly or annual)
- Hourly rate
- Price per project or deliverable
Pro tip: Your business can use one or multiple methods for making money. More information and strategies about pricing for your business can be found in our guide on how to price a product.
2. Determine the Purpose of Your Sales Forecast
The type of sales forecast you need will depend heavily on your purpose or reason for generating the estimate. For example, to obtain a loan, you’ll likely need a long-term sales prediction for underwriting. If you want to know how much money your business can plan to spend throughout the next year, you’d make a budget sales forecast. Alternatively, you would make an individual product forecast template to track sales of a new product or service.
3. Identify Sales Activities
Next, determine the ways and how many leads or potential customers enter and move through your sales process. For example, your business may use online forms to get new leads into your sales pipeline and then a series of tactics that convert a percentage of leads into clients. Your business could rely on foot traffic, in which a certain average number of people enter your store each day, and of those, an average number make a purchase.
If your business sells via ecommerce, you might use marketing tactics like website ads to attract site visitors. Here, a percentage or the average number of prospects decide to buy based on what they learn on your site or special offers rendered. Regardless of your specific activities, you need to know how many leads move through each stage of your sales funnel process. Some of these numbers will be needed to calculate your projections.
4. Collect Data
Once your business model, forecast purpose, and sales activities are identified, compile information based on historical data or industry standards. Information about your prices (per unit, per hour, and so on) are estimated business generated in terms of products sold or hours billed, and sales funnel data.
Sales funnel data refers to the rates of potential customers or leads moving to the next stage until they are paying customers. This information allows you to make estimates for future sales revenue based on the percentages of leads that move through each stage of the funnel, and which ultimately convert.
For example, assume 100 leads are generated, and you are measuring the qualifying rate of those leads in terms of demos set up. If 14 leads agree to a demo, your qualifying rate is 14%. Then of those 14, five agree to receive a proposal, making your conversion rate to the proposal stage 5%. Then, of the five remaining, two of them sign the contract and become clients, giving you a closing rate of 2% at the end of the funnel.
5. Create Your Spreadsheet to Project Sales
Now you’re ready to create a custom forecast template spreadsheet for your business. To use our example, you need to know things like the average number of opportunities (in this case, web traffic) as well as the average percent who make a purchase. In addition, enter the average number of units per purchase (or average dollar amount of purchases), and average price per unit to calculate your estimates.
We recommend using Excel or Google Sheets and create data field headers and cell functions as shown in the example below to automatically calculate projections:
A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | — | Jan 2023 | Feb 2023 | Mar 2023 | Total (Q1) |
2 | Estimated Web Traffic | 1,200 | 1,500 | 1,700 | 4,400 (B2+C2+D2) |
3 | Average % of Site Visitors Who Purchase | 5% | 6% | 7% | 6% (B3+C3+D3)/3 |
4 | Average Number of Site Visitors Who Purchase | 60 (B2*B3) | 90 (C2*C3) | 119 (D2*D3) | 269 (B4+C4+D4) |
5 | Average Number of Units per Purchase | 3 | 3.5 | 4 | 3.5 (B5+C5+D5)/3 |
6 | Average Price per Unit | $10 | $10 | $10 | $10 (B6+C6+D6)/3 |
7 | Estimated Sales | $1,800 (B4*B5)*B6 | $3,150 (C4*C5)*C6 | $4,760 (D4*D5)*D6 | $9,710 (B7+C7+D7) |
Note: In the calculation examples shown above, such as those in the bottom row for “Estimated Sales,” the letter refers to the column and the number refers to the row. So (B4*B5)*B6 would mean Column B Row 4 (60 visitors who purchase) multiplied by Column B Row 5 (three items purchased on average) and then multiplying that by Column B Row 6 ($10 average price per unit).
Once your data fields are filled in and the cell calculation functions are created, further customize your business’ sales forecast spreadsheet with your preferred color schemes and data charts to better visualize the information. Both Excel and Google Sheets have premade templates for color schemes, charts, and graphs, as well as customization options.
Pro tip: Volunteering for sales management projects, including conducting sales forecasting and reporting activities, is one of our tips for advancing into a sales management role. For more career-advancing insights, read our step-by-step article on how to become a sales manager.
Bottom Line
Sales forecasting templates are available in both Excel and Google Sheets templates as well as other premade templates you can download, customize, and use. You may also take advantage of CRM features that organize, estimate, and visualize your company’s sales information, including sales predictions.
A CRM can save sales reps time in making projections as well as optimizing your sales pipeline to generate more leads and close more deals. We highly recommend CRMs such as HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, and Zoho CRM, which all provide excellent sales forecasting features on top of robust sales management and lead nurturing tools.
