One clean sheet to log every enquiry, set the next follow-up date, and see which quotations are going cold — so nothing slips between the shop floor being busy and the customer waiting. Built for how a manufacturer’s sales desk actually works. Download it, delete the sample row, and start today.
Download Excel (.xlsx) See the CRM versionIn most small manufacturing sales desks the enquiry is never the problem — the follow-up is. A drawing comes in on email, someone quotes it, and then the shop floor gets busy. Three weeks later nobody remembers whether the customer said yes, no, or “send me a revised rate.” The order that was 80% won just quietly cooled off, and you only notice when the month-end number is short. A simple, disciplined tracker fixes most of that, because it turns “I think I called them” into a dated row you can sort and act on.
This template is deliberately plain. It is one sheet, ten columns, a bold frozen header and a drop-down for the sales stage. There is nothing to learn and nothing to install. You open it, you delete the one sample row, and you start typing your live enquiries. Every morning you sort by the next follow-up date, call everything due today, and update the stage. That single habit is what keeps a pipeline warm. If you want the fuller argument, read CRM vs Excel sales tracking and sales follow-up best practices.
Every column earns its place. Here is exactly what to record so the sheet stays useful instead of turning into another dumping ground.
| Column | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Enquiry No | Your reference for the enquiry, e.g. ENQ-0001. Keep it unique so you can trace it later. |
| Date | The date the enquiry arrived. Lets you measure how quickly you respond and quote. |
| Customer | The company name. Use your normal customer naming so the sheet matches your invoices. |
| Contact | The person handling it on the customer side — who you actually call or WhatsApp. |
| Product | What they enquired for — the part, tool, assembly or drawing number. |
| Est. Value | A rough order value so you can sort the pipeline by what matters most. |
| Stage | Enquiry, Quotation, Negotiation, Won or Lost — picked from the drop-down. |
| Next Follow-up Date | The single most important cell: the date you will next chase it. Sort by this daily. |
| Owner | The salesperson responsible, so nothing is “someone else’s job.” |
| Remarks | The last thing that happened and what to say next — “asked for revised rate,” “send sample.” |
When an enquiry lands, add a row. Give it an Enquiry No, the date, the customer, the contact and the product. It takes fifteen seconds and it means the enquiry now exists somewhere other than one person’s inbox.
Put in a rough estimated value and set the Stage from the drop-down. Most enquiries start at Enquiry or Quotation. Keeping to the five stages means everyone reads the pipeline the same way.
Decide when you will next chase it and put that date in Next Follow-up Date, then name the Owner. This is the discipline the whole sheet exists for — an open enquiry with no next date is an enquiry going cold.
Sort by Next Follow-up Date, call everything due today, update the stage and remarks, and set the next date. Ten minutes a morning is usually all it takes to stop losing warm orders. When you win, mark it Won; when you lose, mark it Lost and note why — that note is worth money next quarter.
A tracker is a great start, and for a one or two-person desk it may be all you need. But a spreadsheet has a ceiling. It cannot cost an enquiry against a bill of materials, keep the history of every quotation revision, remind you on its own, stop two people overwriting the same row, or hand a won order to production and billing without re-typing. The day you feel that ceiling — the file is slow, numbers do not match the invoice, or a good enquiry got lost anyway — that is the signal to move up.
Fast CRM is the same idea, made automatic and made for manufacturers. It captures the enquiry, costs it against a bill of materials, revises and approves the quotation, and converts the won quote into the exact order the factory builds — with follow-up dashboards that chase leads, enquiries, quotations, orders and payments for you. See the manufacturing CRM, compare options in the best CRM for manufacturing in India or, if you are moving off a generic tool, the Zoho CRM alternative for manufacturers. Check pricing when you are ready.
This template comes from Fast CRM, the sales-pipeline product built in Pune (Nigdi) under the Fast Technology brand by Improsys. We build the enquiry-to-order software for component, tooling and automotive makers, job shops and custom engineering, capital-equipment builders and sales offices — so the tracker reflects the columns real manufacturing sales desks actually need. It is free because a warm pipeline is good for everyone; if it outgrows a sheet, we are a call or WhatsApp away. New to the idea of a manufacturing CRM? Start with the manufacturing CRM guide and the Learn Hub.
Yes. It is a genuinely free Excel file with no email gate and no sign-up. Click the download button, open it in Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice, delete the sample row and start logging your enquiries.
Enquiry No, Date, Customer, Contact, Product, Est. Value, Stage (Enquiry, Quotation, Negotiation, Won or Lost), Next Follow-up Date, Owner and Remarks. The header row is bold, bordered and frozen, the Stage column has a drop-down, and one clearly marked sample row shows how to fill it in.
A spreadsheet is a fine start for a small team, but it will not cost an enquiry against a bill of materials, keep quotation revision history, remind you automatically, or hand a won order to production and billing. When the sheet gets slow or two people overwrite each other, that is the signal to move to a CRM built for manufacturing such as Fast CRM.
You can share the file on Google Sheets or a network drive, but a spreadsheet has no real multi-user control, no audit trail and no automatic reminders. For a growing sales team those limits are exactly what a proper CRM removes.
Fast CRM does everything this sheet does — and costs the enquiry, revises the quotation, and turns the won order into what the factory builds. Book a free 30-minute demo with our team in Pune.
