What's in the Excel inventory template
This Excel inventory template covers the columns most small teams actually track: a unique SKU, product name, category, storage location, unit of measure, current quantity on hand, a reorder point, unit cost, supplier, and the date each row was last counted. Open the .xlsx, delete the sample rows, and start entering your own items — the Stock_Value and Reorder_Flag columns keep working as you go, since they're formulas, not typed-in values.
Keep the SKU column unique per row. If two products share a SKU, any formula that filters or sums by SKU will silently combine their quantities, which is one of the most common causes of a spreadsheet inventory count being wrong without anyone noticing.
How the built-in formulas work
The .xlsx download's yellow-shaded columns already contain these formulas — you don't need to add anything. They're explained here so you can see exactly what's calculating, or adapt them if you add your own columns. Column letters below match the template as downloaded: F is Quantity_On_Hand, G is Reorder_Point, H is Unit_Cost.
| Flag rows that need reordering | =IF(F5<=G5,"REORDER","OK")Sits in the Reorder_Flag column. Returns "REORDER" the moment quantity drops to or below the reorder point, and the row highlights automatically via conditional formatting. |
| Stock value per row | =F5*H5Quantity times unit cost, in the Stock_Value column. Edit either input and this recalculates immediately. |
| Total inventory value | =SUM(I5:I12)In the summary row at the bottom, adding up every row's Stock_Value. |
| Count of items needing reorder | =COUNTIF(J5:J12,"REORDER")Also in the summary row, counting how many rows the Reorder_Flag formula flagged. |
If you're building your own version instead of using the download, select the data range in Excel, open Conditional Formatting, choose "New Rule," pick "Use a formula to determine which cells to format," and enter =$J5="REORDER" with a red fill to highlight low-stock rows visually.
Why teams start with a spreadsheet
An Excel inventory template costs nothing if Excel is already installed, and almost everyone on a small team already knows how to open and edit one. It prints cleanly for a pen-and-paper count, and a formula-driven version answers "what's low" and "what's it all worth" without a login or a monthly subscription.
Where an Excel inventory template breaks down
The formulas above keep a single-location, single-editor sheet honest. They stop helping the moment stock lives in more than one place, because a formula in one file has no idea what is happening in a copy sitting on someone else's laptop. Two people editing the same sheet at once silently overwrite each other's changes, and there is no record of who changed a quantity or when, so a wrong number has no trail back to the mistake.
None of that is a reason to skip Excel on day one. It is a reason to know the specific trigger for switching: a second location, more than one person updating stock during the same shift, or needing an audit trail. StockFlow imports this exact column format directly (from either the .csv or the .xlsx), so the columns you already have carry over instead of being re-typed from scratch.
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