Editable accounting templates built for small business owners, bookkeepers and independent consultants — ledgers, balance sheets, cash flow trackers, expense logs and tax preparation worksheets. Every template opens straight into Excel, Word or Google Sheets, with formulas already set up, so you can start entering figures instead of building a spreadsheet from scratch.
Most accounting templates online are built for accountants, not for the person actually running a small business. Ours are built the other way round: a general ledger you can hand to a bookkeeper without explaining it first, a balance sheet that balances on its own once you enter the figures, and an expense tracker that sorts itself into categories your accountant will recognise at tax time.
Every accounting and finance template in this category is delivered as an editable Excel or Google Sheets file with formulas already built in — no macros to enable, no formatting to fix. If you'd rather work in Word, several of the worksheets are also available as fillable Word documents.
New to bookkeeping? Start with the General Ledger Template and Monthly Expense Tracker — together they cover the two records most small businesses are asked for by tax authorities and lenders. If you're preparing for tax season, the Small Business Tax Worksheet is built around the current filing year.
If you only keep one document, keep a general ledger. It's the record everything else gets built from — every cash sale, expense, and bank transfer logged in one place, in date order. A balance sheet, a cash flow tracker, and a tax worksheet are all just different views of the same ledger data, so getting the ledger habit right first makes every other document faster to fill in later.
Once the ledger is running, add a cash reconciliation sheet if you handle physical cash — it's the single fastest way to catch a shortfall before it becomes a pattern. A petty cash voucher and cash count sheet work alongside it for day-to-day float control.
The most common bookkeeping mistake in a small business isn't a math error — it's inconsistent categorisation. An expense logged as "Office" one week and "Supplies" the next makes month-end reporting unreliable even if every number is individually correct. Our expense tracker uses a fixed category list for this reason, so the same type of cost always lands in the same place.
The second common mistake is mixing personal and business transactions in the same record. If you're running the business from a personal account, use the cash flow tracker to separate business-only movements before they reach your ledger — it saves a lot of reconstruction work at tax time.
The third is treating an invoice as income the moment it's issued rather than when it's paid. The tax invoice template and debit note template are built to be tracked separately from the cash flow tracker, so unpaid invoices don't inflate your actual cash position.
Excel and Google Sheets templates include working formulas — totals, running balances, and category subtotals calculate automatically as you enter data. Word and Google Docs templates (vouchers, receipts, invoices) are formatted for quick fill-in and printing. All templates open directly in Microsoft Office or Google's free apps; no special software or add-ons are required.
Do I need accounting software if I'm using these templates?
No. These templates are built to be a complete, standalone bookkeeping system for a small business — a general ledger, expense tracker, and balance sheet cover what most software packages do, without a monthly subscription. If your business grows past a certain size or you need multi-user access, that's usually when software becomes worth it.
Can my accountant or bookkeeper work with these files directly?
Yes. Every spreadsheet uses standard Excel formulas (no macros or add-ins), so any accountant can open, audit, and extend them without needing to learn a proprietary format.
What's the difference between the cash flow tracker and the general ledger?
The ledger records every transaction in detail. The cash flow tracker summarises money in and out over time so you can see trends — it's a reporting view built from the same underlying figures, not a separate record-keeping system.
Are these templates specific to one country's tax rules?
The core bookkeeping templates (ledger, expense tracker, cash flow) are general-purpose and work anywhere. The Small Business Tax Worksheet is structured around common filing categories and may need minor adjustment to match your local tax authority's specific forms.