Account plan template (key account plan)
An account plan sets out how you'll keep and grow one important existing customer over the next year: how the account is performing, who matters inside the customer's business, what you want to achieve, where you could do more, what could go wrong, and who is doing what about it. This free Word template is built for key accounts, the handful of customers your business would feel most if they left.
Running a company of 30 to 200 people? Documents like this are now worth money.
It's most useful for a customer with a renewal coming up, several sites or teams you could serve, or more than one person involved in buying from you. It sits underneath your sales plan, which covers the whole team's targets.
What's in the template
Key account plan
| Customer | |
|---|---|
| Account owner | |
| Senior sponsor (our side) | |
| Plan covers | e.g. the next 12 months |
| Contract or renewal date | |
| Last updated |
1. Account snapshot
| Measure | Last year | This year to date | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | |||
| Gross margin % | |||
| Services or products bought | |||
| Service or satisfaction score | |||
| Average days to pay |
2. The customer's priorities
Their goals and pressures this year, in their words: growth, cost targets, new sites, regulation, changes at the top. Where does your work help, and where does it get in the way?
| Their priority | What it means for us |
|---|---|
3. Relationship map
| Name and job title | Part in decisions | What they care about | Stance towards us | Our contact | Last spoke |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decision-maker | |||||
| Budget holder | |||||
| Influencer | |||||
| Day-to-day user | |||||
| Procurement |
Stance: supporter, neutral or sceptic. Record stated priorities and facts, not personal remarks.
4. Goals for the account
| Goal | Measure | By when |
|---|---|---|
| Keep: renew or extend what they buy now | ||
| Grow: more of the same where we already work | ||
| Expand: new sites, teams or services | ||
| Relationship: people we need to know better |
5. Whitespace
| Site, team or division | Service 1 | Service 2 | Service 3 | Service 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
In each cell write Us, a competitor's name, In-house or None.
6. Opportunities
| Opportunity | Annual value | Who decides | Next step | Expected decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
7. Risks
| Risk | Early warning sign | What we'll do | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
8. Actions
| Action | Owner | Due | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
9. Reviews
| Internal account review | e.g. monthly, with the account team |
|---|---|
| Business review with the customer | e.g. every six months |
| Next review date |
How to build an account plan
- Choose the accounts. Rank customers by gross profit rather than revenue, add any with a renewal in the next 12 months, and plan properly for the top few. A plan for every customer ends up as a plan for none.
- Start with their business, not yours. Read their website, news and job adverts; for a UK company, the documents it files at Companies House, including its accounts, are free to view. Then ask your main contacts what they're trying to achieve this year.
- Map the people. List everyone who signs, pays, influences, uses or buys your service, with what each cares about and how warm they are towards you. A plan resting on one friendly contact carries its biggest risk in plain sight.
- Fill in the whitespace grid: sites or teams down the side, your services across the top. Every cell marked with a competitor or "None" is a possible opportunity.
- Set three or four goals with numbers and dates: keep, grow, expand, and the relationships to strengthen. Put each opportunity into your sales pipeline so it's tracked with everything else.
- List the risks with their early warning signs, such as a new procurement lead, slower payments, a complaint that reached a director, or your main contact leaving.
- Agree actions with owners and dates, review them monthly, and share the goals (not your internal notes) with the customer at the next business review.
Example: a fictional laundry's largest customer
A fictional 70-person commercial laundry is planning for its largest customer: a 14-hotel group worth about £610,000 a year, whose three-year linen contract ends on 31 March 2027.
| Person | Part in decisions | Cares about | Stance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group operations director | Decision-maker | Guest review scores; cost per occupied room | Supporter |
| Head of procurement (new in post) | Runs the renewal | Price and contract terms | Unknown: never met |
| Housekeeping managers at 14 hotels | Day-to-day users | On-time deliveries; stained items rejected | Mixed: two hotels unhappy after late deliveries in August |
| Finance director | Budget holder | Accurate invoices | Neutral |
| Hotels | Bed and bath linen | Table linen | Staff uniforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 city hotels | Us | Us at 6; a competitor at 4 | A competitor |
| 4 resort hotels | Us | Us | Washed in-house |
Goals: renew the linen contract for three years from April 2027 at a gross margin of at least 28%; win the table linen at the four city hotels using a competitor, worth about £85,000 a year; offer uniforms to the resort hotels, whose housekeeping managers say their machines are due for replacement next year. Biggest risk: the new head of procurement puts the renewal out to tender on price alone. First actions: meet them before Christmas with cost-per-occupied-room figures; add a second van next August, when this year's late deliveries happened; ask the operations director to introduce the laundry's managing director to the finance director.
Common mistakes
- A sales forecast dressed up as a plan: next year's numbers with nothing about the customer's own goals.
- Mapping only the friendly contacts. The person who can end the contract is often the one nobody has met.
- Notes about people you wouldn't want them to read. In the UK, people have the right to a copy of the personal information you hold about them (the ICO's guide to subject access explains it), so record what each person needs and how they decide, not opinions about their character.
- No risks section, so a renewal is lost to a tender nobody saw coming.
- Written once for the annual review and never opened again.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between an account plan and a sales plan?
A sales plan covers the whole team: targets, segments, territories and activity. An account plan goes deep on one customer: the people, their priorities, where you could do more and what could lose you the account. The plans for your largest accounts feed the targets in the sales plan.
Which customers need an account plan?
The ones you'd feel most if they left, usually ranked by gross profit, plus any facing a renewal, a tender or a change of key contact. Keep the number small enough that every plan really is reviewed each month.
Should we share the account plan with the customer?
Share the parts that concern them: the goals you have in common, the service measures and the actions you've agreed. Keep the relationship map, the risks and your margin targets internal.
What is whitespace in account planning?
The things you could supply to a customer but don't yet: the empty or competitor-held cells when you set their sites or teams against everything you sell. Because the customer already knows your work, there's no new supplier set-up and less trust to build.