The Only Sales Activity Tracking Spreadsheets Your Sales Team Needs [Plus Tech To Move Off Spreadsheets]

Jul 22, 2021

Organizing and utilizing sales data effectively is key to continuing to scale your company and drive more revenue. Especially when it comes to your team’s sales activities. More than likely, as a sales leader, you are inundated with a tremendous amount of sales data each day — from the number of prospecting emails your team sent out last week to how many deals have closed so far this month, and everything in between.


Illustration of man and woman holding up spreadsheet with text reading "Excel Spreadsheets your team needs"


Utilizing spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel is still one way to organize your sales data, visualize the data, track activity, and get a birds-eye view of your team’s progress toward sales goals, especially if you don’t currently have sales software to track it for you. Sales spreadsheets can also help you evaluate how your sales process is performing, where your sales funnel may have bottlenecks, and more. Using Excel spreadsheets is one of the best ways to start organizing your sales data more effectively. But, as your team and company grows and become more advanced, you’ll need tracking software that will automate the process.

There are a ton of different things you and your sales team can track through Excel spreadsheets. But overwhelming yourself and your team with all kinds of them will be counterproductive. If you are wondering how to track sales team performance in Excel, we’ve got you covered.

In this article, we’ll show you the main sales activity tracking spreadsheets you should focus on and ways to take your sales data and activity tracking to the next level.


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Top Sales Activity Tracking Spreadsheets


It may be hard to decipher what data is most important to be looking at and laying out in a sales spreadsheet. It’s important that if you are going to spend time on Excel spreadsheets that you are focusing on what matters most.

You can utilize pre-made Excel spreadsheet templates to focus on the most important sales activity and other crucial data and save at least a little bit of time on the spreadsheet creation and manual entry. What’s even better is that many of these templates are free.

Below are some of the most common and most useful options for a sales activity tracking spreadsheet:


Sales Activity Tracking

Best for pinpointing what activities are working best in your sales processes and where improvement can be made in cadences etc


Specific sales activities are one of the most important things that you and your sales reps should be regularly tracking. You can’t improve your sales process if you aren’t tracking exactly what is being done and how often.

A sales activity tracking spreadsheet can be used by your reps daily and weekly to keep track of the number of calls and emails that were made, meetings conducted, deals closed, and more. Your reps can also use activity spreadsheets as a kind of planner to pre-plan their daily attack and what calls need to be made.

As a sales manager, you should be using spreadsheets to track sales activity levels by team and by rep on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to drive consistent outcomes and meet goals. You can control activities. So, you can use activity tracking to confidently pivot and make changes in the sales process when needed.

Here are a couple of examples of a sales activity tracking spreadsheet that you can start with:


Sales Activity Tracker Excel Template By Week


A good place to start when it comes to a spreadsheet for sales activity tracking is one like this template from Smartsheet. This template, broken down by week, allows you and your reps to see weekly and monthly totals of sales activities by rep. Just create a login in Smartsheet to access this free template.


Sample of a sales activity tracker excel template by week
Source: Smartsheet


With a sales activity tracker like this, you can get an overall understanding of sales activities as a whole by measuring each separate component of the sales process. By tracking each part, you can see how each activity is impacting the big picture.

Smartsheet is a great source that offers a wide variety of templates for whatever you need, including tracking customer follow-ups and even your sales funnel. Some of which, like the activity tracker above, are free. They do require a subscription to access their full library of templates. However, they also offer a free trial so that you can make sure that their templates are right for you and your team.


Sales Activity Tracker Daily Planner Template


Another useful sales spreadsheet for tracking purposes is this template from Template.net (just scroll down to Sales Activity Tracker Daily Planner Template). This template covers the basics for each rep and serves two purposes. First, it serves as a sales rep tracker that allows you to see where your reps’ time is spent, providing useful insights into what is working and what may need to change. It also enables your reps to plan and organize their day to be more productive. With better organization and daily goal-setting, your sales reps can start getting more done each day.

Although it is another subscription-based site, Template.net does offer a variety of free sales templates, including this daily sales tracker Excel spreadsheet.

Effective sales tracking is about more than just tracking the specific activities (calls, meetings, emails, etc) that your team performs. You can also gauge what is working and what isn’t by tracking the sales pipeline, forecast, and more.

If you want expanded tracking of sales success, check out these sales tracking Excel templates as well, separated by category:


Sales Pipeline / Opportunity Tracking

Best for optimizing sales effectiveness, increasing the accuracy of your sales forecasting, and setting actionable sales goals


Another important category of sales activity to regularly monitor revolves around opportunities. Both opportunities that may be present within your pipeline at different stages as well as opportunities to make improvements in your sales processes.

Tracking your pipeline, sales funnel, and lead lists themselves will help uncover more opportunities, improve the accuracy of your sales forecasting, and allow you to set actionable and attainable sales goals.

Here are a couple of examples of sales tracker Excel spreadsheets that you can use to track your opportunities within your pipeline and sales funnel:


Sales Pipeline Template


A sales pipeline spreadsheet, like this template by Smartsheet, is a valuable tool that will help with sales forecasting. (Just click “Sales Pipeline Template” in the article outline on the left). You’ll have a birds-eye view of your sales pipeline for each quarter and be able to clearly see what deals are coming down the pipeline.

A detailed sales pipeline template like this will allow you to keep track of every important aspect of estimated sales in your pipeline by company/customer. You have space to keep track of the probability of closing, the deal status, the projected date of closing for each deal, and any further actions.


Sample of a sales pipeline spreadsheet
Source: Smartsheet‌‌


One of the most valuable aspects of tracking your sales pipeline is being able to evaluate how small changes in your pipeline variables can impact sales long-term and make proactive changes as necessary.


Sales Funnel Excel Spreadsheet


Laying out and managing your sales funnel visually, like in this sales funnel template from Tipsographic, is one of the best ways to truly understand the steps in your sales process, the sales activity within those steps, and see where performance might be improved. In using a spreadsheet like this, you can input your sales data for each of the stages of your sales process (your sales funnel) and evaluate the effectiveness of your current sales process.

You can enter and view how many prospects or customers are in each stage as well as the probability percentage. Then you can determine where bottlenecks might be occurring, causing leads to fall out of your sales cycle, and make improvements to your sales methodologies to improve effectiveness. Tracking and evaluating your sales funnel is a very effective tool in helping to set and reach short-term and long-term sales and business goals.


Sales Commission Activity Tracking

Best for tracking your reps’ commission totals based on recent sales activity and further fostering healthy competition among your team


No matter what type of commission structure your sales reps may be on, tracking their current commission totals is extremely beneficial to both sales leadership and the reps themselves. This is especially true if the sales activity and number of deals are broken out as well. Using a sales commission tracker will provide transparency of what has been paid and is due to be paid to the reps and increase the accuracy of payments. Also, depending on the information shared within the commission tracking spreadsheet, you can use it to foster some more healthy competitiveness.

As mentioned above, sales reps have a competitive drive and these templates can help push them to try and better their previous totals for themselves as well as compete against the other reps on the team. In the case of that latter example, you could use a tracker that is shared with your entire team and includes everyone’s current commission totals and the number of deals that those totals include.

Not only will it drive healthy competition (which also means higher sales numbers), it will also allow you to hone in on what is working for the top-selling reps and encourage those same activities across the rest of the team.

Here are a couple of examples of a commission sales activity tracking template you can use to stay on top of commission totals and drive even more sales:


Sales Commission Calculator Template


Keeping a running total of your team’s commission numbers will help keep everyone on the same page and ensure accurate commission payouts. If you are looking for a simple, clear-cut way to use an Excel spreadsheet to total up commission numbers by rep and keep track of the overall commission totals, this free template directly from Microsoft Office has got you covered.

In this commission calculator, you can quickly plug in the commission percentage, your reps’ names, and their current total sales amounts. The template will calculate the commissions owed per rep as well as the overall total sales and total commissions numbers. As you update the total sales for each rep, the template will recalculate overall totals automatically.


Source: Microsoft Office


Fixed Revenue-Based Sales Commission Template


As we mentioned above, it can be helpful to not only see the overall commission totals but the specific deals broken out as well. In this free fixed revenue-based commission spreadsheet from Sales Cookie, you’ll be able to view both the overall commission totals for your team and individual reps as well the deals that are included in those totals. (Just click the link for the “fixed revenue-based commission” in the bullet list at the beginning of the page.)

This template is easy to use and simply multiplies the line-by-line revenue for each deal by the commission rate. Just enter the customer, sales rep’s name, revenue for the deal, and the commission rate. The spreadsheet will automatically calculate the commission amounts, subtract any deductions, and calculate the payouts. You’ll also have a pivot table that will calculate and show the total sales commission per rep.

Sales Cookie also offers several other commissions activity tracking spreadsheets for you to choose from, including for variable sales commission structures, all of which are free to use.


Sales Forecasting

Best for visualizing the expected future sales revenue and helping your team stay on target to meet their sales goals


Your previous sales data helps set the stage to predict what your future sales will look like. Sales forecasting uses this essential sales data to predict both the short and long-term performance of your company. An accurate sales forecast can empower your company to make informed, strategic decisions that reinforce and align with the overall sales plan.

Detailed quantitative sales forecasting is extremely beneficial to setting clear and specific sales targets and goals. Creating the sales forecasts will help you and your team determine exactly what needs to happen to meet these sales goals and monitoring the forecast along the way will help stay on course.

Here are a couple of examples of a sales forecast spreadsheet you can use to make informed business decisions and keep your team on track:


Monthly Sales Forecast Excel Spreadsheet


Sales forecast spreadsheets will always break down the projected numbers for a year at a minimum. Some will break that year down by quarters while others, like this template by Smartsheet, will break the year down by 12 individual months. (Just click “Monthly Sales Projection Template” in the article outline on the left). Some templates also allow you to customize it for shorter or longer periods.

For this template, you can input the total projected sales goals for new business and reorders (or subscription renewal, etc.) for each month and then input actual sales numbers for comparison. The built-in formulas will then auto-calculate the variance, so you can measure the accuracy of your forecasted numbers.


Detailed Sales Forecast Template


If you are looking for a more detailed sales forecast template that also lets you analyze the projected growth rate, profit margin, etc, check out this template from Vertex42.  It’s perfect for companies that have multiple products.

This spreadsheet template gives you a quick starting point for putting together your sales forecast and also includes some sample charts. You can compare and analyze multiple products and services by entering the monthly units sold, unit price, and cost of goods sold (COGS). The template will then calculate the total revenue, growth rate, margin per unit, and gross profit.

Using sales forecast spreadsheets like these will allow you to predict your company’s future sales performance (as best as possible) and help lay out your sales goals to keep you and your team on target.


Sales Goal Tracking

Best for visually tracking progress towards sales goals and being able to pinpoint exactly what may need more attention


Using a sales goals spreadsheet, sometimes referred to as a sales plan spreadsheet, is a clear-cut way of keeping track of your daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly sales goals and what your team’s progress is towards those goals.

There are a variety of different sales goal trackers. Some are built more towards use by your sales reps directly, while other more detailed templates are great for an in-depth managerial perspective. All of them will help drive increased sales effectiveness and more informed decision-making.

Here are a couple of examples of a sales goal tracker you can use to track sales progress and drive more revenue growth:


Daily Sales Goal Tracker Template


When reps can clearly visualize their sales goals it will help keep them focused on what they are trying to achieve and drive smart sales activity. With this template from Template.net (just scroll down to Daily Sales Tracking Excel Format), you and each rep can map their daily performance along with their daily sales goals. You’ll be able to monitor the overall team’s daily performance as well as broken down by rep.


Sample template
Source: Template.net


In this template, you can easily edit and customize the headers to define details about each sales rep, define their daily targets, and track daily performance. You will also be able to monitor which reps or sales territories may need more immediate attention to be able to increase sales and reach expected goals.

Using a template like this, especially when progress is visible to the whole sales team, will inherently gamify sales goals. Sales reps are naturally competitive and in most cases will strive to “beat” their colleagues’ sales numbers, driving motivation and productivity higher.


Sales Plan Template


It is important, from a managerial perspective, to have clear sales goals defined from a long-term perspective also. Setting and tracking sales goals for the year will help drive sales efforts and data-backed business decisions. This detailed template from Smartsheet helps you plan your sales goals for 12 separate months and is also broken down by product. (Just click “Sales Plan Template” in the article outline on the left).

In this template, you can input data for your previous year’s performance, current sales goals, and percent of change. With a yearly sales plan like this, you can compare data over time and across products and visualize growth in your goals.


Why You Should Upgrade to Automated Activity Tracking Software


Looking at sales data and activities in spreadsheets ensures you have all the information you need to review at a glance. As you can see, there are some great pre-built templates available to start with and customize for your needs.

But, what if you didn’t have to spend hours each week manually creating the spreadsheets (even using templates), or customizing them, or worrying about keeping them up to date.

Welcome to the wonderful world of sales software that automates much of that process. In today’s digital environment, utilizing sales software to turn your spreadsheets into automatically updated visual depictions of your data, the team’s sales activity, and even your sales funnel is extremely advantageous. These tools will help save you significant amounts of time and enable you to boost both your sales team’s and your company’s success.

The software tools in our list below will help you automatically track sales activities and sales data in robust dashboards and view reports that help you visualize all of the most important info in half the time. Graphically-based visual depictions of sales data are read faster and more fully comprehended than line item data. You can more easily pinpoint trends and make proactive corrections where needed more quickly.

Most of the sales tech available today is also cloud-based. So you and your team aren’t limited to where or how you can view and edit your sales data. Whether you are in the office or looking at information on the go on your phone, with a sales activity tracker app and other sales tools you’ll be able to better manage your team’s sales process and activity.

You’ll also be confident in knowing the information is updated in real-time automatically. Cutting down on the chances of items being mistakenly left out like when data is being put together manually in a sales Excel template. Let’s take a look at some of the best options available today for sales software:


Business man typing on laptop with illustrative data elements


Top Apps for Sales Activity Tracking


From CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) to analytics tools, these are just a few examples below of the array of sales software tools and sales activity tracker apps available today. All of these will help you move past Excel spreadsheets and make tracking and measuring sales activity and data much easier and more efficient:


Outreach

Best for tracking inside sales activities


If you need automated sales activity tracking and optimized communication for your inside sales team, the sales engagement platform Outreach is a good option. With Outreach, your sales reps can use the multi-channel communications platform to have more effective conversations with built-in conversational intelligence, all communications activities can be tracked and planned, and sales managers can utilize valuable live call coaching.

Outreach prioritizes and automates each customer touchpoint throughout your sales process. Thus giving your reps more opportunity to focus on what matters most: effectively engaging customers. For sales managers, Outreach enables you to use built-in analytics and machine learning to pinpoint what activities and communications connect with prospects and customers the best. This allows you to optimize sales processes to further your team’s success.

Utilize Outreach to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of your sales activity tracking for your inside sales team, boost reps’ productivity, and increase sales revenue.


Map My Customers

Best for tracking outside sales activities


A good CRM software will be your all-in-one sales toolbox for your outside sales team. Map My Customers is a good CRM to another level. With this mobile-first platform, purpose-built for field sales reps and their managers, you can throw out all of those Excel spreadsheets.

This platform provides you with the robust sales data organization, tracking, automation, visualization, and mapping capabilities you need directly on your mobile device or desktop. Map My Customers offers a comprehensive visual dashboard that provides a birds-eye-view of sales activity in real-time, cadence management to ensure valuable leads don’t fall through the cracks, and powerful reporting capabilities that give you simplified views of crucial sales data and activity to uncover valuable insights that can optimize sales efforts.

Also, with built-in Quick Actions, your reps can automate much of the sales activity tracking and automatically log a call, email, or visit. This enables you and your team to easily stay on top of administrative work and ensure accuracy.

The powerful Map My Customers platform can easily stand on its own as an all-in-one CRM, or it can provide an easy way to add valuable tracking, mapping, routing, and territory management capabilities to popular CRMs. Map My Customers offers a mobile-friendly native integration with Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, and Microsoft Dynamics.


See a hands-on product tour of Map My Customers


Hubspot CRM

Best for tracking sales and marketing activity together


Another option when it comes to a sales CRM with built-in activity tracking is Hubspot. This powerful sales CRM can bring together sales activity tracking and marketing activity tracking in an easy-to-use platform.

Within the mobile-friendly Hubspot platform, you and your team can easily log and track all sales activity automatically, store prospect and customer data, and sales leaders can more effectively manage the sales pipeline. Every interaction with a lead, both sales and marketing, is conveniently stored in one place with a clear timeline of activity. This includes emails, calls, meetings, notes, and more. You or your team won’t have to dig for the latest update on where a lead stands.

Alongside enabling you to keep your finger on the pulse of the sales process, Hubspot can help your team deepen customer relationships, capitalize on new opportunities, and close more deals.


Use Automated Software to Elevate Your Team’s Workflow


As you can see, using an Excel sales spreadsheet can serve an important purpose and help you keep your finger on the pulse of your sales team. To be able to track sales activity and progress towards goals, make critical improvements in processes, and continue to increase revenue you have to track sales data in an organized way. Though spreadsheets can be effective, they are time-consuming.By automating your activity tracking and sales management with great tools like the ones covered above, you’ll increase sales effectiveness and empower your team to work at peak levels. More importantly, you will level up your ability as a sales manager to make confident, data-driven decisions and capitalize quickly on opportunities to help your company grow. Try out one of these tools today and optimize your activity tracking and your team’s workflow!

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