Smartsheet's free financial projection template pack includes six professionally designed templates for Excel and Google Sheets — covering everything from a simple one-page projection to a comprehensive 5-year model for established businesses.
Smartsheet's template pack is particularly valuable for teams that need to produce professional, presentation-ready projections quickly. Each template is formatted for direct use in board presentations and investor meetings, removing the layout work that often consumes as much time as the actual financial modelling.
What's Included in the Pack
The free pack covers six distinct forecasting scenarios, each designed for a specific stage of business or planning horizon.
- Simple Financial Projection: One-page overview for quick board presentations
- 12-Month Financial Projection: Monthly revenue, expense, and cash flow
- 3-Year Financial Projection: Medium-term planning with quarterly breakdown
- 5-Year Financial Projection: Long-term strategy with annual summary
- Startup Financial Projection: Pre-revenue and early-stage business planning
- Small Business Financial Projection: Optimised for businesses under $5M revenue
How to Use These Templates
Each template includes sample data to illustrate how the model works. Start by clearing the sample data and entering your historical actuals. Then input your key drivers — revenue growth rate assumptions, cost structure percentages, and capital expenditure plans. The templates automatically calculate derived metrics.
Customisation Tips
The templates are designed to be customised for your business model. Key areas to adapt: revenue categories (add/remove product lines), cost structure (modify the expense breakdown), and growth driver assumptions (link to your specific KPIs like headcount growth or unit economics).
When to Use Each Template
Choose your template based on your planning horizon and business stage. The simple and 12-month templates work best for operational planning and board updates. The 3-year and 5-year templates suit strategic planning cycles. The startup template is purpose-built for pre-revenue businesses planning their first fundraise.
Upgrading from Templates to FP&A Platforms
Templates are an excellent starting point — they force you to think through your financial model and establish a baseline. As your business grows beyond $2-5M ARR, the limitations of spreadsheet templates (version control, multi-user access, real-time updates) typically push teams toward dedicated FP&A platforms.
A well-structured template forces you to think through your financial model systematically — and that disciplined thinking process is often more valuable than the output itself.— Smartsheet Finance Team, Template Library Documentation
Practical Implementation Checklist
- Always start by entering 12–24 months of historical actuals before building projections — the template's growth assumptions only make sense in the context of your actual historical trends
- Customise revenue categories to match your actual business model — the default categories are illustrative, not prescriptive
- Link expense growth assumptions to revenue growth or specific operational drivers rather than using generic percentage growth rates across all cost lines
- Build three scenarios in each template: base (most likely), upside (what goes right), and downside (what goes wrong) — don't present a single-number projection to stakeholders
- Document all key assumptions on a separate tab or clearly in the model — if you can't explain each assumption to a board member, the model isn't ready for presentation
- Plan to upgrade from templates to a dedicated FP&A platform when your monthly model update takes more than 4 hours — that's the signal that template limitations are costing you more than platform costs
Smartsheet's free template pack is an excellent entry point for teams building their first structured financial projections. The discipline of working through a structured template is itself valuable — and when the templates become limiting, that's a clear signal your business has grown to the point where a dedicated planning platform will deliver measurable ROI.
Key Takeaways
Six templates cover all major planning scenarios from startup to 5-year projection
Templates include sample data — clear it and replace with your actuals
Customise revenue categories and cost structure to match your business model
Templates are a great starting point; dedicated platforms suit teams over $5M ARR
Always build three scenarios (base, upside, downside) even when using simple templates
Document all key assumptions explicitly — the model is only as defensible as the assumptions behind it
The template upgrade trigger: when monthly updates take more than 4 hours, the ROI case for a planning platform is compelling
