Nail Your Accounting Team’s Capacity Planning with This Two-Cell Google Sheet Template

Why Capacity Planning Feels Like Guesswork

We know 30 June looms, then December hits, and suddenly every file is “urgent.” Small-firm partners tell us they spend more time reshuffling work than reviewing numbers. The culprit is shaky capacity planning—too many spreadsheets, not enough clarity. One partner stuffs a tab with every client deadline since 2015; another holds the plan in her head. Both approaches miss the mark when workload spikes.

Peak-season chaos is only half the story. Day-to-day, firms also juggle staff leave, surprise advisory projects and the odd “can you just” email from a favourite client. Without a fast way to see available hours versus promised work, managers default to gut feel. That leads to over-promising, under-delivering and stressed seniors who eye LinkedIn at 10 p.m.

Typical pinch points

• Tax lodgement weeks where six people tackle eight people’s work.
• A niche GST review stuck because the only specialist is at a conference.
• Progress billing delayed because no one knows when jobs will actually finish.

The Hidden Price Tag of Bad Forecasts

When workload and capacity part ways, profit walks out the door. Over-worked teams burn 18 percent more hours on rework and corrections, says an AICPA productivity brief. That is time you can’t bill—or worse, must write off. Partners feel the dent: a 5-point drop in utilisation can slice annual profit per partner by $40 k in a ten-person firm.

Staff pay an even steeper price. A recent survey found 70 percent of accountants cite “unsustainable workload” as a top reason for quitting —second only to salary (Accounting Today). Replacing a senior takes months and costs up to 150 percent of salary. Meanwhile, clients see missed calls and late deliverables. Net promoter scores slide, and competitors circle.

Cash flow also wobbles. If one overdue audit delays invoicing by two weeks, that’s effectively an interest-free loan to your client. Multiply by 30 engagements and the working-capital hit grows fast. Cracked planning looks small on the screen but huge on the P&L.

The Two-Cell Template: Built Before Your Coffee Cools

Good news—we can fix the fog without buying an enterprise tool. Open a fresh Google Sheet. Cell A1: “Available hours.” Cell B1: “Required hours.” Drop this week’s totals in each cell. In C1 add =B1/A1 to see utilisation. In D1 add =A1-B1 for surplus or deficit. Five key strokes, one instant truth.

Add a traffic-light rule:

• Green when utilisation is 65–85 percent (healthy),
• Yellow below 65 percent (idle capacity),
• Red above 85 percent (overload).

Now share the sheet with the team. They update their numbers every Friday before lunch. You glance at the colours, shuffle tasks and lock next week’s plan in twenty minutes—no more late-night maths.

Firms already doing this report quick wins. One three-partner practice in Brisbane freed 10 hours a week and trimmed overtime by 25 percent in the first month. Another flagged a looming skills gap six weeks early and hired a casual before deadlines slipped. Simple numbers drive swift decisions.

Want to go further? Feed the same two cells into a second tab tracking KPIs like utilisation and write-offs. Or connect the sheet to Zapier for auto-updates from your time-tracking app. When you’re ready for deeper automation, see how Doc Cheetah’s intake and workflow tools pull data straight into your plan—no extra clicks. See our features or jump to a five-minute demo.

Clock’s ticking; reclaim it.

How Doc Cheetah Solves This

Your new two-cell sheet only works if the “Available hours” cell is honest. Right now, it isn’t—because chasing client paperwork still eats two, sometimes three, hours a day. That ghost time never shows up in the plan, so you keep over-promising Monday and apologising Friday.

Doc Cheetah gives those hours back.

• Magic Link Uploads slash client friction. One click, no passwords, docs land in your queue before lunch.
• Automated Reminders do the polite nagging, not your seniors. Think 30 fewer “still need your BAS?” emails per job.
• Smart Checklists & Templates standardise requests, so juniors don’t reinvent them and partners don’t review them.
• The Real-Time Progress Tracker shows every client’s % complete. Your sheet’s “Required hours” stops being a guess.

Result: firms report 2.5 hours saved per staff member, per day. Drop that into A1 and watch utilisation fall back into the healthy green zone—without cutting work or staff.

The profit math is even sweeter:

• 30% more capacity means you can take on five extra $5k returns each quarter—$100k in pure margin.
• Fewer extensions = happier clients and faster billing. Cash hits the bank, not the WIP limbo.
• Teams leave on time, so retention goes up and recruitment fees go down.

Ready to plug real time back into your plan? Book a live, five-minute walkthrough and see your own numbers move while the kettle boils. Grab a slot here → Instant demo.

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Doc Cheetah: we chase the documents, you chase higher profit per partner.