Plant Nursery Inventory Spreadsheet: A Free Template

A plant nursery inventory spreadsheet has two jobs. The first is a stock list: every plant by size and by where it is, with how many are on hand and how many are ready to sell, because a nursery always holds plants that aren't sellable yet. The second is what a plant costs, which for a nursery means potting up: plugs or liners, pots, soil and labor go in, and fewer good plants come out than went in, because some are always lost. In the example below, a small nursery pots up 288 coneflower plugs into gallon pots and gets 264 good plants at $2.20 each, and its stock list holds $2,572.66 of plants at cost, $9,953.98 of them ready to sell at its prices. Below is what to track, the potting-up cost, the stock list, how to use it through a spring, and a free template.

The short version

• Track each plant by size: a 4-inch and a 1-gallon of the same plant are different stock.
• Note where it is: greenhouse, shade house, sales yard.
• Keep "on hand" and "ready to sell" apart; a plant that isn't sellable yet isn't stock you can sell.
• Cost each plant from its potting-up batch: plug, pot, soil, labor, divided by the good plants.
• Losses belong in the cost: in the example, 24 of 288 coneflowers didn't make it.
• Value stock at cost for the books, and what's ready at price for the season's sales.
• TaroStack treats potting up as a batch: plugs, pots and soil in, good plants out. More below.

What to track

How to run a count that's fast and accurate across a greenhouse and a yard is in how to count inventory.

What a plant costs: potting up

Bayou Bloom Nursery, a made-up plant nursery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I use in these examples, pots up its spring stock in March:

The coneflower batch cost $580.80 for 288 pots; spread over the 264 that survived, each good plant carries the cost of the ones that didn't. Count the losses at every step, damping off, root rot, a cold night, not just at the end. What a loss rate does to cost is in scrap rate formula.

Growing time costs money too: water, heat, fertilizer and bench space for the weeks before a plant sells. The template leaves room to add a share of those to the cost each if you want the full cost at the sales yard.

The stock list

On hand at cost, the stock is worth $2,572.66; that's the number for the books. What's ready to sell, at price, is $9,953.98; that's what the sales yard can bring in this month if it sells. The 96 lavender aren't ready, so they count at cost but not at price yet.

Through a spring

Count once a week in the busy season, the same morning each week, and update "ready to sell" as plants size up or bloom. Move plants between places as they go out to the yard, and mark losses as they happen with a reason. By the end of the season, the batches tell you which plants paid and which lost too many to be worth growing again. How seasonal businesses plan stock ahead of a peak is in seasonal inventory.

Get the template

Download the plant nursery inventory spreadsheet. Two sheets. Potting up takes each batch's plugs or liners, pots, soil, minutes and losses, and works out the good plants and the cost of each. Stock takes each plant and size, where it is, on hand and ready to sell, cost and price, and works out the value on hand at cost and what's ready at price. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

A spring nursery has hundreds of lines across three or four sizes, plugs arriving weekly, plants stepping up from 4-inch to gallon, and a sales yard that empties every weekend. The sheet is right on the morning of the count and wrong by lunchtime, the losses go unrecorded, and nobody knows what a gallon coneflower really cost after the rot took a bench.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack treats potting up as production.

Potting up as a batch. Each plant and size is an item, and potting up is a recipe: plugs, pots, soil and fertilizer. Recording a batch takes them off stock at what you paid and puts the plants on at their cost, divided by the good ones, and units convert: soil bought by the bale, used by the pot. Stepping up from 4-inch to gallon is the same, with the 4-inch plant as the input.

Losses with reasons. Plants lost after potting go off as adjustments with their reason, reported by reason and item, so the plant that keeps rotting shows up. Counting works on a phone, in the greenhouse or the yard, with no signal.

And the sales. A garden center or market stall is a site, so stock moved there is counted there, and margins are reported by product, so the plants that pay are the ones you grow more of next spring.

Recipes, batches, counting and margins by product are on every plan, from $49 a month; a market stall or second yard as its own site is on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How do I keep track of plant inventory?

List each plant by size, note where it is, and keep on hand and ready to sell apart. Count weekly in season, and cost each plant from its potting-up batch, losses included.

What should be on a nursery inventory list?

Plant, size, location, on hand, ready to sell, cost each and price, and from those, the value at cost and the value of what's ready at price.

How do you calculate the cost of a nursery plant?

Add the plug or liner, the pot, soil and fertilizer and the labor to pot it up, for the whole batch, then divide by the plants that survived to sale. In the example, a gallon coneflower costs $2.20.

How do nurseries value inventory?

At cost for the books: in the example, $2,572.66 on hand. What's ready to sell at price, $9,953.98, is a sales number, not a value for the balance sheet.