Consumables & Small Tools Spend Tracker Spreadsheet
What a year of small purchases actually comes to, how much of it never reached a job, and what buying at the nearest door cost.
Every business with vans has two spends. One is watched: the materials that go on a quote, the invoices somebody checks, the orders somebody signs. The other is not watched at all, because no single purchase in it is ever large enough to be worth watching — a tube of sealant, a pack of blades, another tape measure — and by the end of the year nobody has ever seen it in one place.
What is in it
- Every purchase on one row: 1,400 rows, ten places to buy and twenty kinds of thing, all named by you
- Not On A Job: what share of the spend carries no job reference and so can never be charged on or defended
- Spend per chargeable hour, which turns a drawer of receipts into a number you can put next to your rate
- By Item: how many times you bought it, the cheapest you ever paid, the dearest you ever paid, and the gap
- Everything repriced at your own cheapest price — no catalogue, no benchmark, nobody else’s deal
- By Where and By Who: every door you walk through priced, and each buying habit kept in its own column
Who it is for
Anything bought in small amounts by several people: a contractor with vans, a restaurant kitchen, a salon, a clinic, a workshop, a studio, a lettings business. No supplier, wholesaler or shop is named anywhere in the file — they are empty slots you fill in yourself.
The worked example
In the worked year 1,120 purchases came to $50,025: an average purchase of $44.67, $962 a week, $3.60 per chargeable hour. $30,798 of it — 61.6% — never reached a job at all, and $30,334 went off account, on a card or in cash.
Priced at the cheapest the business itself had paid for each item, the same purchases would have come to $39,182. The difference is $10,844, 21.7% of the whole bill and $209 a week: one door ran 8.0% over the cheapest and another 73.5%, and a single tube of sealant ran from $12.24 to $22.56 in the same year.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Order on WhatsApp — $9
Orders are taken on WhatsApp: message me and I’ll send the payment details, then the files as soon as the payment is confirmed.
A look inside the file
Questions people actually ask
How do I work out what all the small consumable and tool purchases actually cost me?
Log one row per purchase and the file answers it three ways: how much landed on a job, what it cost per chargeable hour, and what convenience cost. In the worked year 1,120 purchases came to $50,025 — $44.67 each, $962 a week, $3.60 per chargeable hour — and $30,798 of it, 61.6%, never reached a job at all. Priced at the cheapest price you yourself paid during the year, the same items would have cost $39,182: $10,844 less, 21.7% of the bill.
Is this only for the trades, and what if we buy far more than 1,400 times a year?
No — it works for anything bought in small amounts by several people: a restaurant kitchen, a salon, a clinic, a workshop, a studio, a lettings business. If you buy more often than the file holds, summarise: one row per item per place per month works perfectly well, because the file does not care whether a row is one receipt or thirty.
We don't use job numbers and we don't keep chargeable hours — can I still use it?
Yes — if job numbers are missing, the first pass tells you that, which is itself the answer; start writing them on the receipts and run it again in three months. For hours, put your own estimate in Setup, use billable days, or simply ignore the per-hour lines and everything else still works. The cheapest-price comparison needs nothing but your own receipts.
Does it need Excel, or can I run it in Google Sheets?
Yes — the file is built as .xlsx, so it opens in Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, goes into Google Sheets through File → Import → Upload, and works in LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install and no subscription. You download a file and it is yours. It holds 1,400 purchase rows across ten places to buy and twenty kinds of thing, and comes with a filled-in worked year, a blank copy and a plain-English PDF guide.
Does it name any particular wholesaler, and does it connect to my bank or supplier account?
No — no supplier, wholesaler or shop is named anywhere; there are ten empty slots you name yourself, each with one word next to it: Account, Card or Cash. It is not stock control or a purchase-order system, not accounting, bookkeeping or tax software, and nothing syncs or logs in. It will not stop anybody buying sealant at the DIY shed on a Sunday — it tells you what that habit costs in a year and which door is the dear one.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes small buying spread across several people, vans and a handful of suppliers. If yours is different — a trade account with tiered pricing, a stores or crib room that issues to jobs, purchase cards with a statement feed to reconcile against, or tools that need tracking rather than consuming — I can build the same logic around how you actually work.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.