Free Resource Planning Template (Excel)

Project Resource Planning vs Headcount Planning: What's Different

"Resource planning" gets used for two different jobs. One is org-wide headcount planning: deciding how many people you need in each role or department over the next year. The other is project-level resource allocation: assigning the people you already have to specific projects and weeks, and checking whether anyone is overloaded.

This template is built for the second job. It assumes you already know your team and focuses on where their hours go this week or this month: which project, how many hours, and what that costs and bills out to.

If what you actually need is headcount planning by role or department, a dedicated workforce planning template is the better fit. This one stays scoped to assigning existing people to existing projects and tracking their utilization.

What's Inside the Free Resource Planning Excel Template

Two sheets. Resources lists each person with their hourly cost, billed rate, and weekly capacity in hours - up to 30 resources. Allocations is where you log the actual work: resource, project, week, hours allocated, and the same cost and billed rate, with room for 150 allocation rows.

Every allocation row calculates its own cost, revenue, and margin the moment you enter the hours, so you're not building that math per project from scratch.

Assigning Resources to Projects and Tracking Utilization

Add one row per resource, per project, per week on the Allocations sheet. Cost (hourly cost times hours), revenue (billed rate times hours), and margin (revenue minus cost) calculate for that line as soon as you fill it in.

To see utilization, copy each person's total allocated hours for the week back onto the Resources sheet, in the "Allocated hours (this week)" column. That's a manual step - the two sheets aren't linked by a lookup formula - but once the number is there, utilization percent (allocated hours divided by weekly capacity) and the overallocation flag calculate for you.

The overallocation flag simply reads "Overallocated" once utilization passes 100 percent, so a quick glance down the Resources sheet tells you who's stretched too thin before it turns into a missed deadline.

Cost, Revenue, and Margin per Resource

The Allocations sheet totals allocated hours, cost, revenue, and margin across every row you've entered, so you can see at a glance what your resourcing costs and bills out to in total, not just line by line.

On the Resources sheet, a summary count shows how many resources are currently flagged overallocated, which is the number worth checking first when you're deciding whether to push back a deadline or bring in help.