Free tool · for handmade small businesses
Maker Business OS Starter
Most maker spreadsheets don’t talk to each other. You log a sale in one file, adjust stock in another, and work out the month at the end by hand — if you get round to it. This free 3-tab Excel starter connects the three pieces that matter most: log a sale once, and your stock and your month both update themselves.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Hosted free on Ardent Seller, our software for makers. No email, no account — the download is right there on the page.
What it does
- An Inventory tab with on-hand quantity, reorder point and last unit cost — with a status column that reads on-hand against reorder point and flashes each row red, amber or green.
- A Sales Log tab — one row per sale, line totals computed for you, and hidden helper columns that classify each sale by month.
- A Monthly Summary that rolls revenue and units up by month straight from the Sales Log, with nothing to type.
- A colour code you only have to learn once — yellow is your input, grey is a formula — explained in a Read Me that shows how the three tabs connect.
- Pre-loaded with a working soap & candle business you can replace with your own catalog in a few minutes.
Own it, don't rent it
Want the other eleven tabs?
This free starter connects three tabs. The full Maker’s Business Operating System connects fourteen — inventory with low-stock alerts and a fee-aware pricing calculator, wholesale, customers, a sales log that decrements stock and books the platform fee, expenses and mileage, a monthly P&L, and a Schedule C that reconciles against it. Log a sale once and the rest of the file follows.
A one-time purchase you keep and reuse for the life of your shop — the owned system between a pile of disconnected spreadsheets and a monthly bookkeeping subscription.
A record-keeping template, not financial, tax or accounting advice. The sample business is fictional. Hosted free on Ardent Seller, our software for makers. Free to use; please don’t resell or redistribute.