Action plan template
An action plan breaks a goal into specific actions, each with one owner, a start date, a due date and a status, so everyone can see what's moving and what's slipping. This free Excel template counts down the days left on every action and flags anything overdue or due within a week, using today's date.
Running a company of 30 to 200 people? Documents like this are now worth money.
Use it whenever a meeting, review or audit produces a list of things to do: a strategy day, a customer complaint review, a staff survey, an inspection or a review of your risk register. A worked example sheet shows a finished plan.
What's in the template
The download has 3 sheets: Action plan, Example - Action plan, plus a read-me.
Action plan: [goal or plan name] (example rows from the Example sheet):
| Goal | Action | Owner | Start | Due date | Status | % complete | Days left | Flag | Resources or cost | Notes and evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clients pay within 45 days on average by 31 Mar | Agree 30-day payment terms in every new contract | Commercial director | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-30 | Done | 100% | calculated | calculated | Two hours of legal review | New contract template in use from 27 Nov |
| Clients pay within 45 days on average by 31 Mar | Send each invoice on the day the project milestone is signed off | Finance manager | 2026-11-09 | 2026-12-18 | In progress | 60% | calculated | calculated | Three of five project leads now copy sign-off emails to finance | |
| Clients pay within 45 days on average by 31 Mar | Phone clients 7 days before each invoice is due | Credit controller | 2026-11-16 | 2027-01-29 | In progress | 30% | calculated | calculated | Four hours a week | Call script drafted |
| Clients pay within 45 days on average by 31 Mar | Offer card and direct debit payment on invoices under £5,000 | Finance manager | 2026-12-01 | 2027-01-15 | At risk | 20% | calculated | calculated | Card fees on small invoices | Bank set-up form returned for a missing signature |
| Board can see progress | Add debtor days to the monthly KPI dashboard | Finance manager | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-27 | Blocked | 50% | calculated | calculated | Waiting for the accounts system supplier to build the report | |
| Fewer invoice disputes | Put the purchase order number and project code on every invoice | Accounts assistant | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-13 | Done | 100% | calculated | calculated | Invoice template changed |
How to write an action plan
- State the goal as a result with a number and a date: "Clients pay within 45 days on average by 31 March", not "improve cash collection".
- List what has to happen for the goal to be met, then keep the actions that will make the biggest difference. Five to ten per goal is a manageable number.
- Start each action with a verb and make it checkable. Someone else should be able to tell whether "Put the PO number on every invoice" is done. Nobody can tell with "Look at invoicing".
- Give each action one owner. Others can help, but one person answers for it at the review.
- Work the dates back from the goal's deadline, and stagger them so everything doesn't land in the last week of the quarter.
- Write down the resources: budget, hours, or help from another team. An action that needs money nobody has approved is a wish.
- Set the review rhythm: weekly for a short plan, monthly for a long one. Owners update the status and % complete before the review, not during it.
How the template works
- Status is a drop-down: Not started, In progress, At risk, Blocked or Done. At risk turns amber, Blocked red and Done green.
- Days left counts down to the due date from today. A negative number is the days overdue.
- Flag shows Overdue in red once the due date has passed and the action isn't Done, Due soon in amber in the last seven days, and Late start in amber if the start date has passed and the action hasn't started.
- Filters: turn on Excel's filter (Data, then Filter) to see one owner's actions before a one-to-one, or only the flagged rows before a review.
Status records the owner's judgement; Flag records the calendar. When an action says In progress but the flag says Overdue, that gap is the conversation to have.
Example: a fictional consultancy collecting cash faster
The Example sheet is a plan from a fictional 55-person engineering consultancy whose clients were taking around two months to pay. The goal: an average of 45 days by 31 March. Seven actions sit under three goals: faster payment, fewer invoice disputes, and progress the board can see.
At the first monthly review, two rows stood out. Card payments were At risk because the bank's set-up form had come back unsigned, a five-minute fix once someone noticed. The KPI report was Blocked by the accounts system supplier, so the finance manager escalated it to the supplier's account manager that day. Everything else was on track, so the review took fifteen minutes.
The board follows the result, debtor days, on its KPI dashboard, so the plan and the measure are reviewed side by side.
Action plan, project plan or to-do list?
A to-do list is one person's tasks with no goal attached. An action plan sets out actions towards a goal, with several owners and dates, and gets reviewed until the goal is met. A project plan is for a bigger piece of work whose tasks depend on each other, with phases, a budget and a schedule, usually drawn as a Gantt chart. If most of your actions can't start until another one finishes, you've outgrown an action plan.
Common mistakes
- Actions that are really goals, like "improve morale". Nobody can ever tick them off.
- Two or three owners on one action. Each assumes another is doing it.
- Every due date on the last day of the quarter.
- A plan written at an away day and next opened at the following one. Book the reviews when you write it.
- The plan owner guessing the status instead of asking the action owner.
- Forty actions for one goal, so nothing has priority.
Frequently asked questions
What should an action plan include?
A goal, and for each action: what will be done, who owns it, when it starts and finishes, its status, and the resources it needs. A date for the next review keeps the whole plan alive.
Can I use it as a health and safety action plan?
Yes. Among other things, HSE says its risk assessment template is there to record the further action needed to control the risks, who needs to carry it out and when it's needed by. Those three map straight onto this template's Action, Owner and Due date columns. Keep the risk assessment itself as the record of the hazards and the controls already in place.
How often should an action plan be reviewed?
Often enough that nothing can slip for long without being noticed: weekly for a plan that runs a few weeks, monthly for one that runs a year. Review it in a meeting, not by email, so blocked actions get unblocked.