Somewhere in your office there is a transport planning spreadsheet: jobs on rows, trucks and drivers across the top, three shades of yellow only one person can decode, and a formula nobody dares touch. It is how most UK hauliers under ten trucks run the day, it is free, and for a small fleet it works. This post gives you a proper haulage planning spreadsheet template to copy or download, shows you how to set it up so it stays under control, is honest about what a spreadsheet handles well, and names the five signs that it is time to stop.
The transport planning spreadsheet template
You came for the template, so here it is first. Call it a transport planner template, a haulage spreadsheet template or just the run sheet: the structure is the same three tabs. A Daily Run Sheet for planning the day, a Vehicles & Drivers tab for the dates that catch operators out, and a POD & Invoice Log so paperwork does not go missing between delivery and payment. The full layout is on this page below, and the same structure is in the downloadable file.
Download: transport-planning-spreadsheet-template.xlsx (free, no email required). Or copy the columns straight from the tables below into Excel or Google Sheets. The file arrives with the header rows frozen, Y/N dropdowns in place, expiry dates that highlight themselves amber at 60 days and red at 30, and an Archive tab for completed weeks.
Tab 1: Daily Run Sheet
| Date | Vehicle reg | Driver | Job ref | Customer | Collection | Delivery | Load | Rate (£) | POD (Y/N) | Invoiced (Y/N) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14/07/2026 | AB12 CDE | J. Smith | J-1041 | Example Foods Ltd | PE1 1AA / 07:30 | M1 1AA / 11:00 | 26 pallets / 24t | 520 | Y | N | Booked-in slot |
Tab 2: Vehicles & Drivers
| Vehicle reg | Type | MOT due | PMI due (6-weekly) | Tax due | Assigned driver | Licence expiry | Driver CPC (DQC) expiry | Tachograph card expiry | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AB12 CDE | 44t artic | 03/11/2026 | 21/08/2026 | 01/10/2026 | J. Smith | 14/02/2029 | 09/03/2027 | 30/06/2028 |
Tab 3: POD & Invoice Log
| Job ref | Customer | Delivery date | POD received | POD location | Invoice no | Invoice date | Paid (Y/N) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J-1041 | Example Foods Ltd | 14/07/2026 | 16/07/2026 | Scans folder / July | INV-2210 | 18/07/2026 | N | 30-day terms |
Two habits make the template work. Fill the Daily Run Sheet the evening before, not on the morning. And check the Vehicles & Drivers tab every Monday, because a date column nobody looks at protects nobody.
How each tab works
A template is only useful if you know why each column is there. Here is the thinking behind the three tabs, and the problem each one exists to prevent.
Tab 1: the Daily Run Sheet
This is the planning desk in twelve columns. One row is one job, and the columns run in the order the day does: when, which truck, which driver, where from, where to, what it pays, then the workflow columns, POD back, invoiced, notes. It matters because whoever opens the file sees the whole day in one view. The tip: give every job a ref and never reuse it. That ref is the thread tying the row to its POD and its invoice later.
Tab 2: Vehicles & Drivers
This tab holds the dates that catch operators out when they slip: MOT, safety inspections, tax, driver licence, Driver CPC card and tachograph card. It matters because these are the expiries with your Operator’s Licence attached. In the download, any date within 60 days turns amber and within 30 turns red, so the tab argues for attention instead of waiting to be opened. The tip: the PMI column assumes the 6-weekly interval many operators run, but your stated interval sits on your O-licence undertaking, so check it against DVSA’s Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness.
Tab 3: the POD & Invoice Log
Nobody loses money on the day of the delivery. They lose it in the gap between delivered and paid, and this tab closes that gap: each job ref reappears here with the delivery date, POD status, where the scan lives, the invoice number and whether it has been paid. The tip: work down the Paid column once a week and chase everything past terms. A dull habit, worth thousands.
Set the template up properly
Ten minutes of setup is the difference between a spreadsheet that runs the desk and one that quietly falls apart. The download arrives with the first four below already done; they take a few clicks to recreate in Excel or Google Sheets if you build your own.
- Freeze the header row so the column names stay visible at row 200. In Excel: View, then Freeze Panes. In Sheets: View, then Freeze.
- Use dropdowns for the Y/N columns. Data validation stops “yes”, “Y ” and “done” creeping into a column you will want to filter later. The download restricts the POD, Invoiced and Paid columns to Y or N.
- Let the dates shout. Conditional formatting turns expiry dates amber at 60 days out and red at 30, so risk is visible the moment the tab opens.
- Archive completed weeks. Move finished jobs to the Archive tab monthly. A 5,000-row live sheet is slow to open and easy to mis-sort; archiving keeps the working tab fast and the history intact.
Two more habits the file cannot do for you. Protect the sheet once the layout is right (Review, then Protect Sheet) and unlock only the cells people type in, because the classic spreadsheet disaster is a sort applied to half the columns. And keep the file in a cloud drive with version history, so “the laptop died” is an inconvenience rather than the end of your records.
Common spreadsheet mistakes
Most transport planning spreadsheets fail the same way. Not because Excel breaks, but through habits like these.
Two versions of the truth. The plan gets emailed, someone edits the copy, and by Thursday the office is running “plan-v2-FINAL” while the yard runs the original. One file, one location, one owner. Everyone else reads.
A colour code only one person can read. Yellow means waiting, orange means probably, red means ring the customer. The system works until its author is off sick. If a colour carries meaning, write the meaning in a legend cell on the sheet itself.
Overtyped formulas. A tired planner types a number over the one formula that totals the week, and every figure downstream is quietly wrong. Keep formulas in a protected summary area, separate from the cells people type in.
The same data typed twice. Driver names and vehicle regs keyed into every row by hand drift into three spellings by Friday, and “J. Smith”, “Smith J” and “John S” are three different drivers to a filter. Pick one format and stick to it, or add a dropdown that pulls from the Vehicles & Drivers tab so the run sheet can only say what the fleet list says.
Jobs without a job ref. A row with no reference cannot be matched to a POD or an invoice. It becomes the delivery you did, cannot prove, and never get paid for.
No backup. A spreadsheet on one laptop’s desktop is a single point of failure for the whole operation. Cloud drive, version history, every time.
What a transport planning spreadsheet handles well
Honestly: at one to five trucks, a well-built transport scheduling spreadsheet is a reasonable way to run a planning desk. It puts the day’s jobs in one view, shows who is on which truck, holds the rate you agreed, and costs nothing. That last point matters. In the RHA’s 2025 cost movement survey, operating costs rose 5.91% excluding fuel while margins sat at around 2%, so nobody should apologise for using a free tool while it still does the job.
A spreadsheet is also completely yours. No licence fee, no training course, no vendor. If you are at that stage, use the template above and get on with the work.
A normal day in the file looks like this. The evening before, jobs come in by phone and email and go onto rows. In the morning the planner allocates trucks and drivers and shares the day’s view, and the office works down it: ticking off deliveries as drivers ring in, chasing PODs, marking what can be invoiced. At one to five trucks that rhythm holds comfortably. The rest of this post is about what happens when it stops holding.
Where spreadsheets reach their limit
The spreadsheet’s limits are structural, not a matter of better formulas. It is a file in the office. It has no connection to the truck, the driver, or the customer, and only one person can really own it at a time.
Some of these gaps cost time. Others carry real risk. DVSA walkaround check guidance requires drivers to record the result of every daily check and report defects in writing, and officers can ask for those records at the roadside. A record that stands up shows who completed the check, when it was done and what was inspected, plus any defect found and how it was put right. A cell that says “checked: Y” carries none of that. It is a note, not evidence. The same applies to PODs: a customer withholding payment wants the signed proof, not a row that says it exists.
Nobody decides to buy a TMS overnight. Operators simply reach the point where the spreadsheet takes more managing than the fleet does. The five signs below are how that point announces itself.
When to stop: the five signs
1. Sunday-night invoicing
It starts as one late evening at month end. Then the paperwork will not fit inside the week, because every invoice means finding the row, finding the POD and re-keying both into the accounts package. The giveaway is the MD doing admin on a Sunday while competitors price Monday’s work. When invoicing eats the weekend, the free tool has stopped being free. Our worked example on the real cost of not having a TMS puts the hidden cost for a 12-truck operator at around £42,000 a year across admin time, lost paperwork and compliance risk.
2. The vanished POD
A customer disputes a delivery from three weeks ago. The proof exists, probably: on paper in a truck, or in a photo on a driver’s phone. Until it is found, a completed job is unpaid work, and a 30-day payer becomes a 60-day payer. Once chasing paperwork is a standing job in the office, the log tab is recording the problem rather than preventing it.
3. The plan lives in one head
The file records what was decided. The reasoning, why that truck, why that order, which customer will flex, lives with whoever built it. Take that person out for a day, a holiday or a better job offer, and the desk stops. That is not a staffing problem. It is what happens when the plan has no system underneath it.
4. The near-miss
This one deserves the hardest look. Analysis by recruiter Blue Arrow and logistics analyst Aricia, published in July 2025, found that more than 117,000 driver qualification cards (DQCs) expired between October 2024 and May 2025, more than one in six lorry drivers letting the card lapse. Expiry dates in a tab nobody opens are exactly how a qualified driver quietly becomes an unqualified one, with your Operator’s Licence attached to the outcome. The first near-miss, a licence spotted a week before expiry, a skipped check caught by luck, is the warning shot.
5. Customers asking for tracking
This one is quieter but just as final. The moment two people need to plan at once, or a customer expects a live ETA instead of a phone call, the file itself is the ceiling. No formula gives a spreadsheet a connection to the truck. If several of these feel familiar, our post on the warning signs you need transport management software goes through the buying triggers in more detail.
Spreadsheet or TMS: a rough guide by fleet size
There is no research-backed threshold where the spreadsheet stops working. It depends on the work, the customers and the office. But fleet size is the honest shorthand, so treat this as illustrative guidance rather than a rule.
Illustrative guide: spreadsheet or TMS by fleet size
| Fleet size | What usually works | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| 1–5 trucks | A well-set-up transport planning spreadsheet | A spreadsheet is usually enough while one planner can comfortably hold the work and the paperwork. Use the template, keep the money. |
| 6–20 trucks | Spreadsheet or TMS: the crossover | Start reviewing a TMS if you’re regularly chasing PODs, invoicing after hours or fielding customers who expect live updates. |
| 21–75 trucks | A TMS | Usually the better long-term choice: planning, compliance and customer communication get harder to hold in a file at this size. |
The caveat cuts both ways: a five-truck fridge operator running booked-in slots can outgrow the file before a ten-truck general haulier does. The signs matter more than the count.
What replaces it
A transport management system (TMS) does what the file cannot: jobs go from the planning screen to the Driver App, PODs come back the moment the job completes, licences and skills are held against each driver so a mismatch is flagged before the job goes out, and invoicing runs off delivered work instead of re-keyed rows. The three tabs above are the manual version of exactly that flow: in a TMS they stop being separate tabs to reconcile, because the job is entered once and carries its own POD and invoice with it. We keep an honest side-by-side of HaulierMagic and spreadsheets if you want the direct comparison, and a page for growing operators making exactly this move. Per-user costs are published openly on our pricing page.
“Since using a TMS system, planning has become much simpler, saving time and creating full visibility whilst allowing the drivers to go paperless using the mobile app. We are 100% happy with the system, the setup process was fantastic and the ongoing support we have with the team is spot on. I would highly recommend Haulier-Magic to anyone looking for this type of system.”
— Gary Dale, Stears Haulage Limited
The template above will carry you for a while yet. Use it well, keep the Monday check, and when the five signs start stacking up, stop before the file costs you a customer or a licence. Spreadsheets don’t suddenly fail. They quietly become the busiest person in the office.
Frequently asked questions
What should a transport planning spreadsheet include?
Three tabs: a daily run sheet (date, vehicle, driver, job ref, customer, collection, delivery, load, rate, POD and invoiced status), a vehicles and drivers tab (MOT, PMI, tax, licence, Driver CPC and tachograph card expiry dates), and a POD and invoice log tracking each job from delivery to payment.
Does the template work in Google Sheets as well as Excel?
Yes. The file contains no macros or formulas, so it imports cleanly: upload it to Google Drive and open it with Sheets. The frozen header rows, Y/N dropdowns and expiry-date highlighting all survive the import, and the same three-tab structure works copied into a blank sheet.
Can more than one planner use the same spreadsheet safely?
Only up to a point. A shared file in OneDrive or Google Sheets lets two people edit at once, but there is no job ownership, no audit trail, and nothing to stop a sort or an overtype wrecking the day. Keep one planner owning the file and everyone else reading. When two people genuinely need to plan at once, that is sign five.
Can I manage subcontractors with this template?
You can record them. Add a Subcontractor column to the Daily Run Sheet, put the carrier’s name against the job and the agreed rate in the notes. What a spreadsheet cannot do is show a subcontractor’s progress or collect their POD, so subbed work means more chasing, not less.
Will the template work for multi-drop or multi-collection work?
Yes, with one convention: one row per drop, all sharing the same job ref, so a three-drop job is three rows that filter together. That keeps PODs and invoicing traceable per drop. If most of your work is multi-drop, expect the file to grow quickly and archive more often.
