Free Inventory Templates

Get your free inventory templates

Most template roundups are a list of links to somebody else's file. These are ours. Every live template below is a file we built and checked before publishing it, and every one that isn't built yet says so rather than pointing you at a page that doesn't exist.

The workbook is one file, and it is the same file whichever app you work in:

• Download the inventory management workbook (.xlsx, 206 KB), opens in Excel and LibreOffice Calc
• Make your own copy in Google Sheets

On a Mac, the same .xlsx opens in Numbers. The one extra step each app needs is on its own page, linked further down.

No sign-up, no email gate, no time limit.

Which inventory template do you need?

Before you pick a file format, pick a job. Most people arriving at a page like this already know roughly what they want to do and are only guessing at which artifact does it.

The question of which app to open is a separate one, and a smaller one. Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers each have their own page below with the exact opening steps and the handful of things worth checking after the file lands.

The inventory management workbook

This is the one most people want. It is a working system rather than a blank grid: you fill in your products, your suppliers and your opening quantities, then log purchases, sales and stock movements as they happen, and the rest calculates itself.

What's inside

Eight sheets, 206 KB, no macros.

• Start here. Short instructions, the order to fill things in, and the one simplification you should know about before you rely on the numbers.
• Dashboard. Stock value at cost and at retail, units on hand, SKUs to reorder, out-of-stock count, open purchase order value, revenue, COGS, gross profit and margin, plus a reorder list, top and bottom 5 products by revenue, revenue against COGS by month, and stock value by category.
• Products. One row per SKU: SKU, product name, category, description, unit cost, price, reorder point and reorder quantity, with live quantity on hand, status, stock value, units sold, revenue, COGS, gross profit and sell-through calculated for you.
• Stock In-Out. A dated log for everything that moves stock without being an order: customer returns, damage, write-offs, count corrections and transfers.
• Purchase Orders. What you ordered, what has been received, what is still outstanding, and the order's status.
• Sales Orders. Revenue, COGS and gross profit per line, which is where the margin numbers on the dashboard come from.
• Suppliers. Contact details, how many products you buy from each, and open purchase order value by supplier.
• Lists. The dropdown values the other sheets use, so categories and statuses stay consistent instead of drifting into three spellings.

Verified formulas

A downloaded spreadsheet asks you to trust formulas you did not write. So we checked them rather than hoping.

Every formula cell in the workbook, 12,254 of them, was recalculated and compared against an independent recomputation of the same sample data written separately in Python. Zero mismatches, zero formula errors, and blank capacity rows stay blank instead of returning 0 or an error. Then a mutation test: change one opening quantity deep in the Products sheet, recalculate, and confirm every downstream number moves the way it should (quantity on hand, status, the reorder count, units on hand, stock value and the dashboard reorder list all updated correctly). A control run against the unmutated model returned mismatches, which is how we know the checker actually catches a wrong value rather than agreeing with everything.

It uses ordinary functions on purpose. IF, SUMIFS, VLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH, ROUND, IFERROR and COUNTIF, with bounded ranges. No array formulas, no XLOOKUP, no Excel Tables, no macros. That is why the same file behaves the same in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice Calc instead of breaking on import.

Pick your app

Same file, three slightly different routes in:

• Google Sheets inventory management template: upload the file to Drive and open it with Sheets. Dropdowns, conditional formatting and the charts normally survive the conversion, and the page tells you what to glance at.
• Excel inventory management template: opens natively in Excel on Windows and macOS, and in LibreOffice Calc. Nothing version-specific is used, so older Excel installs are fine.
• Numbers inventory management template: opens in Numbers on a Mac, and saving it to iCloud Drive puts it on your iPhone and iPad. Dropdowns sometimes arrive as plain cells after import, and that page has the fix.

Inventory list template

An inventory list and an inventory spreadsheet are not quite the same request. A list answers "what do we have, and how much of it": SKU, product name, category, quantity on hand, maybe where it sits. A spreadsheet in the fuller sense carries the orders, the costs and the dashboard on top of that.

If the list is all you want, you do not need a different download. The Products tab of the workbook above already is that list, and it is the same first four columns you would have built yourself. Open the file, use Products, and ignore the other seven tabs. If you would rather not see them at all, delete them; the Products sheet keeps working for the columns a plain list uses, and the formulas that depend on the order tabs simply stop having anything to count.

There is no separate, leaner list file, and we would rather say that than put a second download button in front of the same sheet.

Purchase order template

Use this one when you need to send a supplier a clean, numbered purchase order: PO number, dates, supplier and ship-to details, line items with quantity and unit cost, tax, shipping, a total that calculates itself, and a line for approval.

It has its own page with every field explained and four formats to choose from, so we won't repeat it here.

Free purchase order template (Google Sheets, Excel, Word, PDF)

Packing slip template

Use a packing slip when you want the person opening the box to be able to check what arrived against what was ordered, without seeing prices. It travels with the shipment, lists quantities rather than money, and it is the document that turns "something's missing" into "line 4 is short by two" while the carton is still open.

Bill of materials template

A bill of materials is the list of components, quantities and sub-assemblies that one finished product is built from. It is worth writing down well before you need it inside software, because the act of writing it is usually where you discover that two people assumed different quantities for the same component.

It has its own page with the workbook, a worked multi-level cost rollup and a printable build sheet.

Free bill of materials template (Excel, plus a printable PDF build sheet)

For the concept rather than the file, see what a bill of materials is and why it matters.

Inventory count sheet

A count sheet is what someone carries into the warehouse: the SKU, the location, what the system says you should have, a blank column for what they actually counted, and a variance column that shows the difference. The variance column is the point. A count that only records the new number tells you what you have; a count that records the gap tells you something about why.

It has its own page, with a blind and a non-blind sheet to print and a spreadsheet that works out the variance in units and in value.

Free inventory count sheet (printable PDF, plus an Excel variance workbook)

The process around the sheet is already written up: annual stock-taking procedures for a full count, and inventory cycle counting for counting a slice at a time instead of shutting down for a weekend.

When a spreadsheet is enough, and when it stops working

Who should stay on a spreadsheet

One location. One or two sales channels. One person keeping the file, or a small team that never has it open at the same moment. No lot numbers, batches or expiry dates to track.

If that's you, the workbook above is not training wheels. It is a genuinely good system for that shape of business, plenty of companies run on one for years, and switching to software would mostly buy you a monthly bill and a migration weekend. Take the file and get on with your week.

The four signals it's stopped working

The spreadsheet does not fail because it is a spreadsheet. It fails when the business asks it a question one file and one editor cannot answer honestly. There are four of those questions, and they tend to arrive in this order.

1. More than one location. A spreadsheet holds one number per SKU. Once the same stock sits in two places, that single number stops being an honest answer to "can I ship this today", because half of it might be in the other building.
2. More than one sales channel. Orders from a web store, a marketplace and a phone call all have to draw down the same stock figure. When each channel is typed in by hand, the file is accurate at the moment someone updates it and drifting every minute after.
3. Two people editing the same file. The moment two people have the sheet open, both can sell the same unit before either saves. Nothing in a spreadsheet reserves stock the instant an order is taken, so the conflict shows up later as a short shipment.
4. Lot, batch or expiry tracking. A spreadsheet will hold a lot number as a text column all day. What it cannot do is reserve a specific lot against a shipment, tell you what is about to expire, or make sure the oldest stock goes out first without someone remembering to check.

Where Qoblex fits

If one or more of those four is already costing you time, here is what the middle path looks like. This is the gap Qoblex is built for: more structure than a spreadsheet, considerably less weight than an ERP.

For the first signal, Qoblex holds its own stock figure for every location you add, so "we have 40" becomes "we have 28 here and 12 there", and stock moves between locations on a transfer document instead of a message someone forgets to send.

For the second, orders from connected sales channels arrive automatically and draw down the same stock as every other channel, so the web store and the phone order are competing for the same units rather than two separate tallies. One honest limit worth knowing: the Amazon connection brings orders and returns in, but it is inbound only. Qoblex does not push stock levels back out to Amazon, so your Amazon quantities stay managed on Amazon's side.

For the third, Qoblex keeps total, allocated and available stock apart. Stock committed to an order stops counting as free to sell the moment that order is taken, which is the thing a shared file cannot do no matter how carefully people use it.

For the fourth, Qoblex records the batch, lot or serial number and the expiry date every time tracked stock moves: receiving, transfers, shipments and adjustments. It flags stock approaching expiry, and the batch list shows which lot expires first so pickers can take that one, the practice usually called FEFO, first expired first out, as opposed to picking by whichever carton is nearest. Worth being precise about what that means: Qoblex supports the procedure and gives you the information to follow it, it does not block you from shipping a different lot. Lot, batch, serial and expiry tracking is a paid add-on rather than part of every plan by default, so check pricing for the current details.

And if none of the four describe your week, the template at the top of this page is still the right answer.

FAQ

What's the difference between an inventory template and an inventory spreadsheet?

In practice they are the same thing: a spreadsheet with the right columns and formulas already in place, instead of one you build from scratch. "Inventory list template" usually means the simpler version, a list of what you have, without purchase orders, sales or a dashboard on top.

Is there a free inventory list template?

Yes. The Products tab of the inventory management workbook is exactly that list: SKU, product name, category and quantity on hand. Download the workbook, use that tab, and delete or ignore the other seven if the list is all you need. There is no separate list file to hunt for.

Do these templates have real working formulas, or do I have to build them myself?

Live formulas, already built. The workbook's 12,254 formula cells were checked against an independent recomputation with zero mismatches, including a mutation test: change a value, confirm every downstream number updates correctly.

Which format should I use: Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers?

Whichever app you already work in. All three open the same file with the same formulas. The Google Sheets, Excel and Numbers pages linked above cover the exact opening steps and the few app-specific things worth checking after import.

What if I outgrow a spreadsheet?

Four signals say you have: more than one location, more than one sales channel, more than one person editing the file, or lot and expiry tracking. The section above sets out each one and exactly where Qoblex fits it. If none of them apply yet, the template is still the right tool.