Guide · 2026-10-16

How to track clients and jobs from inquiry to paid in one sheet

A simple way to follow every client and job from first inquiry to final payment in a single Google Sheet, with the columns and habits that keep nothing from slipping.

Every service business has the same quiet problem. Inquiries arrive by email, text and social media. Some become jobs, some don't. Deposits come in, invoices go out, and somewhere along the way a follow-up gets forgotten or a balance goes unpaid because nobody noticed the due date.

You do not need a complicated CRM to fix that. A single Google Sheet that follows each job from inquiry to paid can do it. This guide explains how to set it up and, just as important, how to keep it up to date without it becoming a chore.

The idea: one row per job, one list of clients

Keep two connected lists:

• Clients: one row per person or company, with contact details and notes.
• Jobs: one row per piece of work, linked to a client, with a stage, dates and amounts.

Why separate them? Because one client can have many jobs over time, such as a family who books every year or a business that orders every quarter. You type the client's details once, and every job refers back to them.

A third list, Payments, records each payment you receive against a job. It lets you see what has been paid and what is still owed without doing arithmetic in your head.

The stages of a job

Pick a short set of stages that match how your work really runs. A simple pipeline looks like this:

1. Lead: someone asked about your work.
2. Quoted: you sent a price or proposal.
3. Booked: they said yes, and the date or deposit is confirmed.
4. In progress: the work is underway.
5. Delivered: the work is complete and handed over.
6. Paid: the balance is settled.

You can rename these. The important thing is that every job is always in exactly one stage, and that moving it forward is a one-second change. A dropdown makes this easy and keeps spelling consistent so you can count and filter by stage.

The columns that matter on the Jobs list

Resist adding dozens of columns. These cover most needs:

• Job name or reference
• Client (a dropdown that pulls from your Clients list)
• Stage
• Inquiry date and job date
• Price and any add-ons
• Deposit and balance due date
• Next action and next action date (this one is gold)
• Notes

The "next action" pair does more for your business than anything else on the sheet. For each job, write the very next thing you need to do and by when: "send quote, Friday", "chase deposit, Tuesday", "deliver gallery, the 14th". Sort or filter by that date each morning and you have a to-do list that can't forget anything.

Payments: deposits, balances and what's overdue

Record every payment as its own row: date, job, amount and method. Then calculate, for each job:

• Total paid (a SUMIFS over the Payments list)
• Balance (price minus paid)
• Overdue? (balance above zero and due date in the past)

Add conditional formatting so overdue balances turn red and jobs due within a week turn amber. A glance at the sheet then tells you where your attention is needed. Receiving money is the point of the whole system, so make unpaid balances impossible to miss.

A dashboard for the morning check

On a separate tab, show a few numbers that answer "what needs me today?":

• Jobs by stage (how many leads, quoted, booked and so on)
• Follow-ups due today or overdue
• Balances outstanding and how many are overdue
• Money received this month

These are all simple counts and sums over the Jobs and Payments lists. Keep the dashboard small. If it takes more than a few seconds to read, trim it.

Habits that keep it working

A tracker only helps if it's current. Three habits make the difference:

• Log it the moment it happens. When an inquiry arrives, add the job right then, even with partial information. A half-filled row is better than none.
• Update the stage and next action every time you touch a job. It takes a few seconds and it's what keeps the dashboard honest.
• Do a weekly review. Spend ten minutes on the same day each week: scan every job that isn't Paid, clear overdue next actions and chase any late balances.

If you find yourself not using the sheet, the usual cause is too many columns. Remove what you never fill in.

Privacy and your clients' information

A client tracker holds personal details. Keep the sheet in your own Google account, share it only with people who need it, and consider what you actually need to store. Contact details and job notes are usually enough; avoid keeping sensitive information you don't need. If you work with clients in places with data protection laws, check what applies to you.

Google Sheets limits

Sheets handles hundreds or a few thousand jobs comfortably. It doesn't send follow-up emails or reminders by itself unless you build scripts, and the templates here avoid scripts on purpose, so the reminders are visual: colors, flags and the next-action list you check yourself. It also doesn't talk to your email or booking system, so you'll type jobs in or paste them from your inbox. For many small businesses that trade-off is fine, because the sheet is simple, free and entirely under your control.

Ready-made versions

If you would like the structure already built, with clients, jobs, payments and a dashboard that flags what needs attention, the Photographer CRM & Client Tracker is made for photographers, with jobs, clients, payments and a dashboard. The Client Tracker does the same job for any small business, following jobs from Lead to Paid. Both come with a Sample copy filled with made-up data so you can see how it behaves before entering your own. You can also browse all Photographers templates, or the Small Business Basics range.