Owning a small business can be extremely rewarding. You have an unique opportunity to make a significant impact during the company's critical growth years. But then there are the less glamorous aspects involved such as tight budgets, lack of direction and limited resources that can take a toll.
Whether you need to brush up on your bookkeeping skills or want to plan your new professional bio, here are some free small business templates you can utilise today.
Essential Small Business Templates
Before getting into the thick of fanciful spreadsheet formulas and VAT returns, you need to figure out the fundamentals of your business.
The three templates featured below will help you clarify some essential aspects regarding your offering and form the basis of your business narrative.
- Professional Bio
- One Page Business Plan
- Business Letterhead
1. Professional Bio
Nobody likes to write about themselves but it’s an integral part of creating a connection with your customers. The good news is HubSpot has created 40+ fill-in-the-blank bio templates you can use to put together a compelling, professional narrative you'll want to shout about.
Use the professional bio templates to give your team page a refresh. We recommend collaborating with a couple of close colleagues as you fill these out to ensure everybody’s unique skills and contributions are highlighted. You can download it for free here.
2. One-Page Business Plan
The idea of a business plan can seem daunting, especially if you don't have a long-term strategy developed. Although they’re pretty important, it can be tempting to defer them to focus on running your business.
Creating your business plan is more than just getting your ideas and funding requirements down somewhere.
This one-page business plan template is an exploratory process in which you can analyse your industry, target market and potential opportunities. You can add your company logo and branding to the document and make it more personalised to your business.
Download your one-page business plan template here.
3. Business Letterhead
While it may seem like a small detail, designing an on-brand business letterhead is vital to establish credibility and trust in written correspondence.
Your letterhead often serves as the first impression to potential customers, so you want to make sure it represents your business to the best of its ability. Your letterhead typically includes valuable contact details, so you'll want to convey that information clearly and concisely.
Canva has created a plethora of professional business letterhead templates for you. From crisp and corporate to something a little different and unique, you can get access to them here.
SME Marketing Templates
Marketing is a critical aspect for businesses of any size. However, when you’re a small business looking to grow and thrive, it’s essential to invest time and effort into your online presence. These templates make it easier to connect with your customers and increase brand awareness.
- Company Newsletter
- Social Media Graphics
- Easy Infographics
4. Company Newsletter
Want to keep your loyal customers and interested prospects engaged and informed about your business? Try sending a monthly company newsletter.
These free business newsletter templates created by Microsoft are pre-formatted with headlines, subheads, sidebars and callouts. Just select any area and add your specific content.
Clean and concise, the templates make it easy for you to plug in things like updates, accomplishments, awards and upcoming product launches to share with your community. Download here to start engaging your prospects.
5. Social Media Graphics
Social media has become essential for any growing small business. It’s not just a place to engage with prospects but it’s also a fantastic environment to learn about your industry and emerging competitors.
With the help of these free Canva templates, you can create impressive social media images for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
These templates are designed to meet the dimension requirements for each network, so you can spend less time tweaking aspect ratios and more time boosting your social media engagement. Start creating now by taking a look at the free social media templates available.
6. Easy Infographics
When you work at a small company, design resources can be hard to come by (and so can time). But that doesn't mean your content creation efforts need to take a back seat as a result.
The importance of infographics is often understated. But they’re a powerful tool used for capturing the attention of your target audiences. Businesses that publish infographics have been found to grow their traffic an average of 12% more than those that don't.
These free infographic templates can be used by design gurus and newbies alike to create quality infographics right in PowerPoint. Download the infographic templates here to add to a blog post or promote a piece of gated content on social media.
Back to Bookkeeping Basics Templates
Not everybody has a bookkeeper or accountant at their disposal. Even though there are many small business expense tracking apps available on the market, many still use traditional templates in the beginning.
For new businesses and startups, the old-fashioned way can handle the bookkeeping basics - even if it’s for a short period. These templates below have been created with small businesses and their books in mind.
- Customer Invoice
- Expense Log
- Petty Cash Tracker
7. Customer Invoice
If your small business is thriving, it’s probably better to invest in paid invoicing software as an excellent way to keep your payments organised. However, for those just starting a template can probably handle your invoicing needs.
Check out the free invoice template we’ve created. It’s professional and can be customised with your company branding. Not only will this make bookkeeping easier for you but you’ll also be able to create and send an unlimited amount of invoices to your customers.
To start generating branded invoices in minutes, click to get access here. When your business grows, a bookkeeping app that sends customised PDF invoices direct to your customer might be an ideal investment.
8. Expense Log
If you run a business and you want to claim back business expenses, you need to make sure you’ve logged them accurately. From office expenses to travel, knowing that your business can claim back some expenses is one thing, but having the right resources to log them makes the process much smoother.
Without an app or template, it can be a long-winded and strenuous task. That’s why your business will benefit from an expense template; to get started, click here.
9. Petty Cash Tracker
Trivial business expenses, like stamps and stationery are covered by petty cash. Although not large amounts of money, it still needs to be documented. Those little costs can all add up. That’s why any business needs to make sure it accounts for each one.
Our free petty cash template is an essential tool for small business owners like yourself. Please take a look at it here.
It can sometimes be tricky to keep track of all these different types of expenditure, that’s why we’ve created these helpful templates to make it easier and quicker.
Unlock Your Business Potential With More Free Bookkeeping Templates
From calculating VAT Returns to generating a Profit & Loss report, if you’re looking to manage your finances more accurately, then we’ve got templates that will help. The pack includes templates for petty cash, profit and loss and more. To get your own, click here.
