A Monthly Report Template for Word and Google Docs

A skeleton you can paste in today: seven sections and an appendix, example wording for each one, and the steps to save it so next month starts from a clean copy. Plus what changes when the report becomes a meeting.

A monthly report template is a fixed set of sections you fill in each month: a short summary, a table of key numbers with last month and target beside each one, two or three charts, a “what changed and why” section, risks and asks, next month’s priorities, and an appendix of definitions. The skeleton is below with example wording for every section. Paste it into Word or Google Docs, apply heading styles, and save it as a template so each month starts from a clean copy.

This page is the template itself. For the analysis behind it, see how to write a monthly business report; for a consultancy’s internal version, the monthly reporting pack.

The skeleton to copy

[Company] Monthly Report — [Month YYYY]
  Prepared by [name] · Period: [first day] to [last day] · Data as of [date]

  1. Summary
     [Three to five sentences. The result that matters most goes first.]

  2. Key numbers
     [Table: Metric | This month | Last month | Change | Target | vs target]

  3. Trends
     [Chart 1: the headline metric by month, last 13 months]
     [Chart 2: this month broken down by channel, product or region]

  4. What changed and why
     [One short paragraph per mover, largest change first.]

  5. By team
     [Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance: two or three sentences each.]

  6. Risks and asks
     [Risk | Likely impact | Owner | What we need | By when]

  7. Next month
     [Three priorities, each with an owner.]

  Appendix
     A. Metric definitions
     B. Data sources and refresh dates
     C. Detailed tables

Every number in the examples below is a placeholder.

Section by section, with example wording

Title block

Name, month, author, and one line most templates leave out: data as of. When a number does not match someone’s system, the first question is when the data was pulled.

1. Summary

Write this last, and keep it to one paragraph. Lead with the result, then the cause, then the one thing you need from the reader.

The summary should still make sense if it is the only thing someone reads. How to write an executive summary covers the structure in more depth.

2. Key numbers

One table, the same rows in the same order every month. Five to eight metrics is plenty; anything more belongs in the appendix.

Show the change in a rate (margin, conversion, win rate) in percentage points, not percent, or a move from 40% to 42% gets reported as “up 5%.” If a metric has no target, leave the cell empty rather than dropping the column.

3. Trends

Charts go under the key numbers table and before the commentary, so the reader sees the shape before the explanation. Two usually cover it:

• A trend: the headline metric by month as a line or column chart. Thirteen months puts the same month last year on the page.
• A breakdown: this month by channel, product or region as a bar chart, sorted largest to smallest.

Title each chart with the point, not the topic: “Net sales rose for the third month running” rather than “Net sales by month.” Put a caption underneath with the period and the source. The mechanics are in how to make a graph in Word and how to put a graph in Google Docs.

4. What changed and why

The section readers come for. One short paragraph per mover, ordered by size of change, each saying what moved, by how much, why, and what happens next.

An honest “we do not know yet” beats silence, and beats a guess written up as a finding.

5. By team

Optional. Two or three sentences per area, same order each month. Small companies can delete it.

6. Risks and asks

Each risk gets an impact, an owner and, if you need something, a deadline. A table keeps it honest.

7. Next month

Three priorities, each with an owner. Next month’s report says how each one went.

Appendix

Definitions: one line per metric with formula, source and date field, for example “Net sales = gross sales minus discounts and returns, by order date, from [system].” Sources: which export each number came from, and when it was pulled. Detailed tables: what a specialist wants and the main reader does not. The definitions keep this month comparable with last month.

Heading styles and layout

Apply real heading styles rather than bold text. Numbered sections get Heading 1, subsections Heading 2. In Word that is Home → Styles; in Google Docs, Format → Paragraph styles, or the style box on the toolbar.

Headings give the reader a clickable outline and give you an automatic table of contents: in Word, References → Table of Contents (right-click it and choose Update Field after edits); in Google Docs, Insert → Page elements → Table of contents, with a refresh button when headings change.

Keep placeholders in square brackets and highlight them. Before sending, search for [; anything left is a number you forgot.

Save it as a reusable template in Word

1. With the skeleton open, go to File → Save As and double-click This PC.
2. Give it a name, such as Monthly Report.
3. In Save as type, choose Word Template (*.dotx). Word switches to its Custom Office Templates folder.
4. Click Save.

Each month, start from File → New → Personal (labeled Custom in some versions) and pick the template. Word opens a new document based on it, so the template itself stays clean. On a Mac, the route is File → Save as Template, with Microsoft Word template (.dotx) as the file format. Steps are from Microsoft’s Create a template page.

Save it as a reusable template in Google Docs

It depends on your account.

Google Workspace, with custom templates turned on. From the Docs home screen, click Template gallery, then your organization’s name, then Submit template. Choose the document, pick a category and click Submit. Custom templates are a setting your Workspace admin has to enable, and only some editions have it, according to Google’s template help and its admin page. If you do not see your organization’s name in the gallery, it is off.

A personal Google account. There is no custom gallery. Keep the skeleton as a master document in a folder called Templates, and at the start of each month open it and choose File → Make a copy. Name it TEMPLATE — make a copy, do not edit.

The MBR variant: when the report is a meeting

A monthly business review uses the same numbers for a different job. The report is read alone; the MBR is where people discuss it and decide things. That changes the template in a few specific ways:

A workable MBR agenda: actions from last time; headline numbers against target; deep dives on two or three movers; risks and decisions needed; a read-back of what was agreed. Send the written report beforehand and do not read it aloud in the room.

What a template does not fix

A template settles the structure, not the fill. Every month you still export the data, rebuild the KPI table, redraw the charts, and reread every sentence for the one still quoting last month’s figure. The charts can be linked to a spreadsheet. The “up [Y%] on last month” in your summary cannot, and it is the number people quote back to you.

Writing the template with the questions already in it

Quiriz for Word lets the template carry the question behind each number instead of the number itself. You write a marker where each answer belongs, and press Resolve markers to answer them all at once against your data in Quiriz:

1. Summary
  Net sales were =QUIRIZ.ASK("total net sales last month") in [Month],
  a change of =QUIRIZ.ASK("percent change in net sales last month vs the month before").
  =QUIRIZ.ASK("comment on what drove net sales last month", "notes")

  2. Key numbers
  =QUIRIZ.ASK("net sales, orders and average order value for the last two months", "table")

  3. Trends
  =QUIRIZ.ASK("net sales by month this year", "chart")
  =QUIRIZ.ASK("net sales by channel last month", "chart")

  4. What changed and why
  =QUIRIZ.ASK("channels whose net sales changed most last month vs the month before", "bullets")

What each one becomes (you can try the questions on sample data first):

• Figure. A marker with no second argument is answered as a single value inside your own sentence. The words around it stay yours.
• Notes. Written commentary in the document’s style, with the figures in the text.
• Bullets. Points written from the figures and checked against them before they reach the page.
• Charts are native, editable Word charts. Right-click and Edit Data works, you can restyle them like any chart you made yourself, and refresh keeps your formatting. Or press Change and say a line instead of bars.
• Tables are real Word tables, captioned with the question that produced them.

Next month, press Refresh all. Every question is asked again; the charts gain the new month, the figures in your sentences move, and your headings, numbering and prose stay where they were. Turn on Mark refreshes as tracked changes and every figure that moved shows as a revision you can accept or reject, so checking what changed means reading the revisions, not the whole document. Lock an object and readers cannot type over it, while refresh still updates it. The metric definitions from your appendix can live in Quiriz as Company Context, so “net sales” means the same thing in every answer.

In Quiriz for Google Docs the same template works with the Google spelling, no dot: =QUIRIZ("net sales by month this year", "chart"). Resolve markers and Refresh all work the same way. Charts in Google Docs are images drawn from the answer’s rows, refreshed in place and restyled with Change. The add-on sends only the question text to Quiriz, never the document’s content.

For the MBR deck, Build a deck in PowerPoint has a monthly business review recipe: Quiriz shows you the slide plan first, builds in your own template with native, editable PowerPoint charts, and closes on an executive summary checked against the slides.

Where it does not apply. If your monthly numbers come from one small spreadsheet you update by hand in ten minutes, the plain template above is the whole job. Markers pay off when fresh data arrives every month, as exports, a scheduled Drive or OneDrive folder, or the HubSpot connector.

Frequently asked questions