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Free Raw Material Inventory Management Spreadsheet

A ready-made Excel template for tracking the materials you buy, the products you make from them, and what it all costs. Seven linked tabs cover material stock, purchases, manufactures, finished products, orders, and end-of-year COGS — so you can build real inventory discipline before you invest in software.

  • Excel format — works in Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers
  • Tracks raw materials and finished products, with stock status flags
  • Automatic cost calculations — landed unit costs, cost per batch, COGS
  • Free to download, with a detailed online instruction guide
Raw material inventory management spreadsheet with bulk material containers, a finished product, and a stock tag

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What's included

Everything you need to start tracking materials properly

Most inventory spreadsheets only count finished stock. This one is built for businesses that make things — it connects the materials you buy to the products you manufacture, so your stock levels and costs actually reflect how your business works.

Materials and products, both tracked

Separate inventory tabs for raw materials and finished products, linked by your manufactures. See at a glance what's on the shelf, what's running low, and what's out of stock.

  • Raw material inventory with on-hand quantities
  • Finished product inventory with stock status flags
  • Calculated "in stock / out of stock" status per item

Flexible measurement units

Every production process is different. Track each material in whatever unit you actually manufacture in — grams, millilitres, ounces, metres, or individual units — so your cost calculations stay accurate.

  • Define a tracking unit per material
  • Unit costs calculated in your chosen unit
  • Works for solids, liquids, lengths, and counts

Automatic cost calculations

The numbers most product businesses guess at, generated for you: landed unit costs from your purchases, material cost per manufacture, and the inventory valuation tallies you need for COGS at tax time.

  • Landed unit costs including shipping and tax
  • Cost per batch and per unit manufactured
  • Start and end-of-year inventory valuations for COGS

Template walkthrough

What each tab of the spreadsheet tracks

The spreadsheet is divided into seven linked tabs, each covering one part of your inventory workflow. It's designed to be used over a single calendar year, so it can calculate your start and end-of-year inventory values. Calculated columns are highlighted in the file — enter your data everywhere else and let the formulas do the work.

1

Material Inventory

Your complete raw material list — the foundation the rest of the spreadsheet builds on. For each material:

  • SKU and name — identify each material clearly (e.g. "Shea Butter — Refined")
  • On-hand quantity — current stock, updated as you count
  • Stock status — calculated in/out of stock flag
  • Unit cost — the fully landed cost per tracking unit
  • Tracking unit — grams, ml, metres, units — whatever you manufacture in
  • Preferred vendor — where you usually buy it
  • Starting quantity and value — feeds your start-of-year valuation
2

Purchases

A full record of every material purchase — one row per material bought, so five items from one supplier means five rows:

  • Purchase date and vendor — when and where you bought it
  • Item cost — what you paid, excluding shipping and tax
  • Quantity purchased — in the material's tracking unit
  • Proportional shipping and tax — allocated per item across the order
  • Landed unit cost — calculated automatically, the true cost per unit including freight
3

Manufactures

The step most inventory spreadsheets skip entirely: recording what you make and the materials each production run consumes:

  • Manufacture date — when the batch was made
  • Product made — SKU and name of the finished product
  • Materials used — one row per material consumed in the run
  • Quantity used — how much of each material to deduct from stock
  • Total material usage cost — calculated per row, building your cost per batch
4

Product Inventory

Your finished goods — what's made, priced, and ready to sell:

  • SKU, name, and category — identify each sellable product
  • Unit price — your retail price per item
  • Manufacture cost — the material cost to make one unit, tallied from your Manufactures tab
  • On-hand quantity and stock status — what's actually available to sell
  • Inventory values — calculated starting and current stock value
5

Orders

Every sale, recorded one product per row so manufacture costs can be tallied against revenue:

  • Order date and ID — match rows back to your sales channels
  • Product and quantity sold — what went out the door
  • Unit manufacture cost — feeds your COGS tally for the year
  • Tax and shipping — proportional amounts per line item
  • Totals — calculated line totals and grand totals
6

Personal Use

A log for materials withdrawn from inventory for anything other than production — samples, testing, or personal use. Keeping these out of your production costs means:

  • Date removed and material — what left inventory, and when
  • Quantity and unit cost — valued at the material's landed cost
  • Total cost — calculated, so your COGS only reflects materials genuinely used in products
7

Reports

The tab that makes the rest worth maintaining — your key totals, tallied automatically through the year:

  • Revenue totals — orders and tax, tallied from your Orders tab
  • Expense totals — purchases and tax from your Purchases tab
  • Inventory valuation — start-of-year value, plus purchases, less personal use and cost of product sold
  • Year-to-date inventory total — the number your accountant asks for at tax time

Ready to get your raw materials under control?

Download the free spreadsheet and you'll have a working material, product, and COGS tracking system in place today — no software required.

Download the free spreadsheet →

What is raw material inventory management?

Raw material inventory management is the process of tracking the materials you use to make your products — quantities on hand, unit costs, suppliers, and consumption in production.

For a product business, it answers three questions that retail-style inventory tracking can't: what materials do I have right now, what did they actually cost me to buy (including shipping), and how much of them has gone into the products I've made? Get those right and everything downstream — pricing, reorder timing, COGS at tax time — stops being guesswork.

Done well, it means you spot low stock before it stops a production run, you know your real cost per batch as material prices shift, and your end-of-year inventory valuation comes from records rather than reconstruction. This spreadsheet covers those fundamentals; for the full picture, read our Complete Guide to Raw Material Inventory Management.

Who uses this

Who should use this raw material inventory spreadsheet?

This template is built for small-batch product businesses that buy raw materials and transform them into finished products — and want to build proper inventory habits before (or instead of) investing in software.

Skincare & cosmetics manufacturers

Formulated products mean long ingredient lists — butters, oils, actives, preservatives, packaging components. The materials tab keeps every input costed and counted, so a missing emulsifier never stalls a production run.

Food & beverage producers

Ingredient prices move constantly, which quietly erodes margins. Logging purchases with landed costs shows you what each batch really costs to make — not what it cost six months ago.

Candle & home fragrance brands

Wax, fragrance oils, wicks, vessels — bought in bulk, used in fractions. Tracking materials in the unit you actually pour in keeps your per-candle costs honest.

Soap & personal care makers

Oils, lye, fragrance, colourants — each batch draws on a dozen materials. The manufactures tab records what every run consumed, so stock levels and batch costs stay connected.

Supplement & wellness brands

High-value raw ingredients make accurate tracking worth real money. Knowing exactly what's on hand — and what it cost landed — prevents both over-ordering and production delays.

DTC sellers getting serious about COGS

If you make what you sell, your accountant needs a COGS figure built from real inventory records. This spreadsheet produces it as a by-product of tracking you should be doing anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is raw material inventory management?

Raw material inventory management is the process of tracking the stock of materials you use to make your products — including quantities on hand, unit costs, supplier details, and consumption in production. For small manufacturers, this means knowing exactly what you have, what it cost to buy, and how much has been used in each production run — so you never run out mid-order or over-invest in stock sitting idle on shelves.

What is the difference between raw material inventory and finished goods inventory?

Raw material inventory covers the ingredients and components you purchase to make products — things like wax, fragrance oil, shea butter, or packaging. Finished goods inventory covers the completed products ready to sell — the candles, soap bars, or jars of sauce in your stockroom. This spreadsheet tracks both: the Material Inventory tab for raw inputs and the Product Inventory tab for finished stock, with the Manufactures tab linking them together.

How do I calculate the cost of raw materials used in production?

Calculate your landed unit cost for each material — that's the purchase price plus proportional shipping and tax, divided by the quantity purchased. Then, for each product you make, multiply the quantity of each material used by its landed unit cost and sum the results. This gives you the total material cost per manufacture, which feeds directly into your COGS calculation at tax time. The spreadsheet performs these calculations for you as you log purchases and manufactures.

What are the limitations of using a raw material inventory spreadsheet?

The biggest limitations are manual data entry, no real-time sync with sales channels, and difficulty scaling beyond a modest number of materials. Spreadsheets don't alert you when stock is running low, don't automatically deduct materials when you record a manufacture, and can quietly develop formula errors as they grow. They're a solid starting point, but most growing product businesses outgrow them within 12–18 months.

Does the spreadsheet work in Google Sheets and Numbers?

Yes. The template is delivered as an Excel file that also opens in Google Sheets and Apple Numbers with its formulas intact. Enter your email address above and we'll send you a download link along with the online instruction guide. The spreadsheet is designed to cover a single calendar year — at year end, you create a fresh copy, carry over your material and product tabs, and update the starting quantities.

How does Stocksmith improve on a raw material inventory spreadsheet?

Stocksmith is built for small manufacturers and automatically deducts raw materials from stock every time you record a manufacture — no manual updates. It syncs orders from Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, Square, and Faire so stock levels update in real time, recalculates your landed material costs with every purchase, and generates the COGS and inventory valuation reports you need at tax time. Everything this spreadsheet does by hand, done automatically. Start a free 14-day trial.

When you outgrow the spreadsheet

Stocksmith does this tracking automatically

The spreadsheet gets you started — and for a while, it's genuinely enough. But every row is manual: every purchase logged by hand, every manufacture deducted by hand, every stock count reconciled by hand.

Stocksmith runs the same workflow — materials, purchases, manufactures, products, orders — as connected software. Record a production run and materials are deducted automatically at their real landed cost. Orders sync in from your sales channels. Stock levels and unit costs stay current without you maintaining them.

The discipline you build with this spreadsheet transfers directly — Stocksmith just removes the data entry that comes with it.

  • Materials deducted automatically on every manufacture
  • Landed costs recalculated with every purchase
  • Orders synced from Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, Faire, and more
  • Low-stock alerts and COGS reports, generated for you

No credit card required. Takes hours to set up, not weeks.

With the spreadsheet

  • Manually deducting materials from stock after every production run
  • Typing every order in by hand from each sales channel
  • Discovering you're out of a material mid-batch — no low-stock warnings
  • One mistyped formula quietly corrupting your COGS for months

With Stocksmith

  • Material stock adjusts automatically when you log a manufacture
  • Orders flow in from every channel — no re-keying
  • Reorder alerts before a shortage stops production
  • COGS and inventory valuation reports ready at tax time