Free sales pipeline template for Excel (built for teams)
A good sales pipeline template for Excel has one row per deal, a fixed list of stages, one owner per deal, a next step with a date, and a flag that tells you when a deal has gone quiet. Our free template has all of that across five tabs, with a summary that totals itself. You can get the template from our free tools and have it running in about ten minutes.
This guide explains what is in the file, how to set it up, how to run it week to week, and when a spreadsheet stops being the right tool.
What is in the template
The file is called the Spreadsheet-to-Pipeline Template. It opens in Excel and has five tabs.
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start here | Five steps to set the file up, plus a colour key. Yellow cells are yours to fill in. White cells are worked out for you. |
| Pipeline | One row per deal, with space for 300 deals. This is the tab you work in every day. |
| Stages | Your stage names, when to move a deal into each one, a win chance per stage and how many days without contact count as stale. |
| Lists | The names of your team and your lead sources. These feed the drop-downs on the Pipeline tab. |
| Summary | Open deals, open pipeline value, weighted pipeline, won value, win rate, and totals by stage and by owner. It updates itself. |
The columns on the Pipeline tab
Each deal has 18 columns. You fill in 13 of them and the file works out the other 5.
- You fill in: company, contact, WhatsApp or phone number, email, source, owner, stage, deal value, created date, last contact date, next step, next step due date and notes.
- The file fills in: deal ID, win chance (taken from the stage), weighted value (deal value multiplied by win chance), days since contact and the flag.
Source, owner and stage are drop-downs, so nobody can type “Whatsapp”, “WA” and “whats app” as three different sources. That one detail keeps the totals on the Summary tab honest.
The flag column
The flag is the reason to use this template instead of a blank sheet. Every open deal gets one of four labels.
| Flag | Colour | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overdue | Red | The next step date has passed. | Do the step today or set a new date. |
| Stale | Amber | Nobody has been in contact for longer than the stage allows. | Send a follow-up and update the last contact date. |
| No next step | Yellow | The deal has no next step written down. | Write one, with a date. |
| OK | None | The deal has a next step that is not yet due and recent contact. | Nothing. |
Won and lost deals show as “Closed” and drop out of the open totals.
How to set it up in ten minutes
- Add your team. On the Lists tab, type each seller’s name under Owners. Add or rename the lead sources so they match where your enquiries really come from.
- Check the stages. The Stages tab starts with five open stages: new lead, contacted, meeting booked, proposal sent and negotiation, followed by won and lost. Rename them if your sale works differently. Our guide to sales pipeline stages for small teams explains how to give each one a clear exit criterion.
- Set the win chances. The starting values run from 10% for a new lead to 80% in negotiation. They are placeholders. Change them once you know how many deals at each stage you usually win.
- Set the “stale after” days. The file starts with 1 day for a new lead, 3 for contacted, 5 for meeting booked and 7 for proposal sent and negotiation. Shorten them if your buyers decide quickly.
- Add your deals. On the Pipeline tab, type over the example row, then add one row per live deal. Give every deal an owner, a stage, a value, a next step and a date.
If your deals are already in another spreadsheet, copy them across one column at a time and paste as values. That keeps the template’s formulas and drop-downs intact.
How to run it week to week
A template only helps if the team keeps it current. Three habits are enough.
Update three cells after every conversation
When a seller speaks to a buyer, they change the last contact date and write the next step with its due date. If the buyer has done something that meets the exit criterion, they move the stage as well. It should take under a minute per deal.
Clear the flags every morning
Filter the Flag column for Overdue, Stale and No next step. Each seller works through their own flagged rows before anything else. Say Amaka opens the file on Monday and sees Delta Freight flagged as stale in “proposal sent”. She sends a short follow-up, updates the date, and the flag clears.
If you are unsure what to send or how many times to try, see how many follow-ups to send before giving up.
Review the Summary tab once a week
The Summary tab gives you the numbers for a weekly meeting without anyone building a report: open deals and value by stage, weighted pipeline, win rate, and overdue and stale counts per owner. Our 30-minute pipeline review agenda shows how to use them.
Win rate in the template is won deals divided by won plus lost deals, counted by number of deals. It only becomes meaningful once you record lost deals as carefully as won ones.
If you want the same pipeline without the upkeep, send us the sheet and we will turn it into a live pipeline within 48 hours through our free pipeline conversion.
What the weighted pipeline tells you
Weighted value is the deal value multiplied by the win chance of its stage. A £2,400 deal at “meeting booked” with a 40% win chance counts as £960. Add up every open deal and you have the weighted pipeline: a rough figure for what the current deals are likely to bring in.
Treat it as an estimate. It is only as good as your win chances and your deal values. If the weighted figure is far above what you close each month, your win chances are too generous or old deals are sitting in late stages.
Where an Excel pipeline works well
A spreadsheet is a sound choice in these situations, and there is no reason to pay for software until they stop being true.
- One or two people are selling.
- You have fewer than about 50 open deals at a time.
- Enquiries arrive in one or two places, so nothing gets missed while you type it in.
- One person owns the file and everyone else trusts it.
Where it starts to strain
The same file gets harder to run as the team grows. These are the usual points of strain.
- Several people edit at once. Copies appear with names like “pipeline_FINAL_v3”, and nobody is sure which one is current.
- Conversations live elsewhere. The sheet says “followed up”, but the WhatsApp chat is on one seller’s phone. When that person is away, the history is too.
- Follow-up depends on memory. The flag tells you a deal is stale. It cannot send the message.
- New enquiries wait to be typed in. A lead from a web form or an advert sits in an inbox until someone copies it across.
- Reporting takes a morning. Anything beyond the Summary tab means building a new formula.
Our guide to the signs your team has outgrown Excel goes through each of these with a way to check your own file. When you do move, importing contacts from Excel to a CRM covers how to clean the data first.
When you outgrow the sheet, we will convert it for you
Socianet is a CRM for sales teams that have outgrown spreadsheets. Send us your sales spreadsheet, this template or your own, and within 48 hours it is a live pipeline with stages, owners and next steps that your whole team can see. The conversion is free and there is no obligation. Send us your sheet.
Frequently asked questions
Is the template really free?
Yes. Tell us where to send it on the free tools section of our site and it is yours to keep and change. There is nothing to pay and no trial period.
Does the template work in Google Sheets?
It is built and tested in Excel. The formulas it uses (COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, INDEX, MATCH and TODAY) also exist in Google Sheets, so the calculations should carry over when you upload the file. Check the drop-downs and the coloured flags after uploading, because formatting does not always convert cleanly.
How many deals can it hold?
The Pipeline tab has formulas ready for 300 deals. If you are close to filling it, that is a sign the pipeline needs more than a spreadsheet. You are likely to feel the strain well before row 300.
How do I create a sales pipeline in Excel from scratch?
Make one row per deal with columns for company, contact, owner, stage, value, last contact, next step and next step date. Keep the stage names on a separate tab and use data validation so sellers pick from a list. Add a formula that compares the next step date with today’s date to flag overdue deals. The template does all of this for you.
What stages should I use?
Start with the five in the template and rename them to match what your buyers do: for example enquiry received, in conversation, qualified, quote in review and agreed. Keep the number small. A stage is only useful if everyone on the team can tell when a deal belongs in it.
Can I change the currency?
Yes. The value columns are labelled in pounds, but they are ordinary numbers. Change the column headings and the number format to naira, dollars or any other currency and the totals keep working.
