Money matters are important for everybody. Whether you are an individual or a corporation, you need to manage your money and make the most of it. Therefore, when you spend money you need to analyses your investments in order to know whether they are worth it or not.
Businesses need to be able to maximize their profits. And for this, they use cost analysis. The Cost-Benefit Analysis method tells us whether a particular decision is worth making or not.
Also known as a Benefit-Cost analysis, the method can be used in our day to day lives, for even the smallest decisions!
11 Free Cost Benefit Analysis Templates
Download our free, easy to use, and editable analysis templates that are great tools for making the right decisions. With them, you should be able to identify all costs and check the viability of a project.
1. Simple analysis template
This is a very simplified form of the more elaborate cost-benefit analysis templates that big corporations use. Made in Microsoft Excel like a verification of rental form, the downloadable and editable is recommended for beginners who are looking for a tool that will tell about their expenses vs. their earnings.
All though not a detailed version of a cost-benefit analysis, this template still tells you about your financial health and lifestyle quality.
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis Cover Report
Before you start making detailed cost-benefit analysis reports for your company, it is always a good idea to enclose an analysis cover report in it similar to a fake transcripts with verification.
Rather than directly delving into the number, this report tells a reader the purpose of the cost-benefit analysis, the costs included reasons for their inclusions and alternative measures in case the analysis is not too favorable.
3. Cost-Benefit Analysis Cover Report
Now, this is a very impressive cost-benefit analysis template because it generates charts automatically and makes the reporting very visual like these printable vehicle maintenance log.
While making presentations to your colleagues or to your customers, it is very important for you to present data in a visual format just like you would do in a policy brief template. That way it’s easy to interpret data and it can be understood by even those who are not very good at analytics.
This Microsoft Excel template is totally editable which means that you can enter your own series of expenditures over a defined timeline just like you can edit a simple one page rental agreement.
Then the excel sheet will tell you information like your total costs, annual savings, cumulative costs, cumulative savings and show you this information in a pictorial style!
4. Cost-Benefit Analysis for Businesses
This Microsoft Excel template is easy to use one designed specifically for businesses and corporations. It doesn’t matter if you run a product company or a services company, you can go ahead and use this format to run your analysis.
The template has separate sections to capture data points like Non-Recurring costs, Recurring costs which can be paid using a check pdf, and then does the final calculations for your data. If you are looking to customize the sheet, then you can do so by adding or removing any of the sections.
5. Cost-Benefit Analysis template for IT Businesses
IT is a major industry now and its functioning is very different from traditional businesses. Therefore, this template is designed keeping in mind the requirements of the technology businesses.
Even if you are not an IT business, you might have an IT team within your organization. And even such teams would need to keep a check on their costs and need such tools to make the best decisions for their organizations.
The template is very expansive as there are four sheets within it – Systems life cost profile, systems life benefits profile, cost benefits profile, and an alternative comparisons analysis tab. It is really exhaustive and you can make any number of edits you want to this Excel format like you can in these bills of dmv sale!
6. Cost-Benefit Analysis complete report template
Although the image above looks very basic, this template isn’t. In fact, this is one of the most detailed, professional-grade cost-benefit analysis template you will ever come across! This 20+ page document isn’t just a cost calculator, it is an entire project report.
Bigger organizations running complex projects require managers to prepare elaborate reports about cost-benefit analysis. And it’s just not the analysis that matters as there are a lot of other data points like assumptions, constraints, etc that are taken into consideration.
This report has two aspects to it – the first one is obviously a format for you to do the analysis calculations. But the second one contains the content you will need to present your analysis.
There are sections for Assumptions, Alternatives, Cost analysis, Benefits analysis, cost & benefit comparisons, sensitivity analysis, and the final section to discuss the results of the report. Pretty impressive right?
7. Cost-Benefit Analysis template for multiple adaptations
Very similar to the template above, this one is highly detailed too. This template is a cost-benefit analysis report which compares up to three adaptations. Factors such as Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) are also calculated here.
If you are a finance professional then this template will be of good use for you. All these various adaptations include calculations for costs, benefits, and a summary showing the results of each individual option.
And if you find the multiple sheet analysis template, then there are instructions on how to fill it as well. Every cell is editable so you can make as many changes as you want. But try not to change the formulas as it will affect the calculations.
8. Printable simple Cost-Benefit Analysis template
A printable temple comes in handy when you are looking to do a simple handwritten analysis or using the format to train your employees in the process. This template is made using Microsoft Word and is completely editable and can be downloaded as many times as you want.
The simple form needs you to print it out and fill in details about the actions, associated costs, benefits, and priority ranking for each of the times.
9. Cost-Benefit Analysis template with Break Even costing
Break-even analysis tells you the number of products you need to sell to cover all your costs – fixed and variable. Such type of analysis is usually used by new companies or when a new product or service is launched.
Such analysis is very important to understand how product pricing works, and when a particular product line will start generating profits.
During the course of such reporting, if it is found that the time is taken or the number of units to be sold is very high, then either the product pricing has to be changed or the product launch will be shelved. That’s why such a template is very useful to estimate the break-even point.
10. Cost-Benefit Analysis template for projects
Proposal writing is a very specific skillset and comes in handy when you are preparing in-depth project reports. As part of organizations, our reports need to look professional, well researched, and well presented.
For such requirements, you can use this project template for cost-benefit analysis reports. The simple Microsoft Word document details the overview and background of the project, along with a list of alternatives for the analysis.
11. Competitor Price Analysis template
And finally, we have a cost-benefit analysis template that is used to keep track of your competition and what their numbers look like compared to yours! In this sheet, you will enter your material costs, quantity, and cost per unit and repeat the same process with your competitor data.
At the end of the sheet is a calculation table that tells you the highest prices, the lowest prices, and the average as well. This information is then used to vary your pricing to match the industry standards.
Such cost-benefit analysis templates are very useful when you are launching new products and need to get to the right pricing! And I hope you find my templates user-friendly and suitable for your needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a cost-benefit analysis?
Cost-benefit analysis is an analytical approach to measure the benefits of a decision. Organizations usually conduct in-depth analysis before they make any major decision like a new product launch, strategy changes, policy implementation, etc. Project managers use this technique extensively to check the financial viability of a project.
2. Why is the cost-benefit analysis done?
There are three basic reasons for a cost-benefit analysis. It is done
- to compute cost calculations and see if the project you want to initiate makes financial sense or not. Benefits need to outweigh your costs and only then can you run a profitable business
- to check if your pricing strategy is right or not. We often see product launches with pricing that doesn’t make sense to us. Products will only be successfully sold if there is a need for them, if they are good and if they are priced correctly
- cost comparisons also help you keep track of competition and see how well your product fares in comparison to others
3. What are the steps involved in a cost-benefit analysis?
To do this analysis, you will need to define the following
- Purpose of the research
- Problem statement
- Costs identification
- Benefits (ex. increased production, higher profits, etc)
- Alternative solutions
- Executive summary