Food Truck Business Spreadsheet Template Excel Google Sheets | Mobile Food Event Profit Tracker, Menu Costing, Break Even Calculator

THE TWO NUMBERS THAT DECIDE WHETHER A FOOD TRUCK SURVIVES

The first is not revenue. A truck can take $107,450 in a season, work every weekend, and still not know why the account is empty in February.

In the sample data in this workbook, the events made $37,369. What was actually kept, after the truck payment, the commissary rent, the insurance and the card fees, was $6,842. That gap is not an accounting curiosity. It is the whole reason busy trucks run out of money, and almost no spreadsheet shows it to you.

The second number is profit per hour. Revenue ranks your bookings one way and profit per hour ranks them another, and the second list is the one that matters, because what you actually run out of is hours and crew — not customers. In this file the biggest day of the year, a $4,620 rally over 8 hours, paid $186 an hour. A $3,900 wedding over 6 hours paid $308. Less money, more profit, home earlier.

This workbook does that arithmetic for you, every time you log an event.


WHAT'S INSIDE — 15 LINKED TABS, 7,031 WORKING FORMULAS

Dashboard — the year at a glance and 18 checks that read your own data and tell you what needs doing today. Events that lost money. Menu items priced under target. Ingredients below par. Permits inside their renewal window. Dates you have double-booked. Confirmed bookings with no deposit taken. Every one recalculates the moment you type

Event P&L — one row per service. Pitch fee, food, staff, fuel, propane, permits and the card fees that come off the top of every sale and never appear as a cost. Then net profit, profit per hour, average ticket, covers per hour, food cost percentage, labour percentage, prime cost and a plain verdict on the day

Break-Even — the question to answer before you accept a booking. Enter what the day costs before you sell a single thing, including your own unpaid prep hours, and it tells you how many covers you need. In the sample, $1,129 of fixed cost means 113 covers. Five turnout scenarios from rained-off to sell-out are priced automatically

Menu Costing — build each item from your own ingredient prices and the cost per portion comes back on its own. Contribution margin, food cost percentage, the price that would hit your target, and a ranking of which item actually banks the most margin over a season. In the sample the best item earns $13.02 each and the worst earns $1.65. If you type an ingredient name it cannot find, it says so out loud — a silent lookup failure makes an item look cheaper and more profitable than it is, which is the worst direction for a costing error to fail in

Inventory — your price book. Purchase cost, units per purchase, cost per unit, par levels, on hand, usage per event, waste, reorder quantity and the value sitting in the truck

Bookings — enquiry, quoted, deposit paid, confirmed, served, invoiced, paid. Deposit and balance calculated, days to go, a weighted pipeline that counts only work you have not done yet, and a clash alarm that watches every date for you

Overheads — weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual costs all reduced to one monthly nut, with each line as a percentage of it

Permits — every licence in every city and county, counting down to expiry, with an amber tier before the red one. An expired health permit does not stop you trading. It stops you trading at the event you already took a deposit for

Vehicle & Equipment — mileage, fuel, service, repairs and generator hours. 2026 has TWO IRS business mileage rates ($0.725 per mile to 30 June, $0.760 from 1 July), so every trip picks its rate from its own date and prints which rate it used, and a trip dated outside your rate year is flagged rather than silently mis-rated

Staff & Tips — hours and wages by person and event, and a tip pool that splits itself by hours worked. Enter the pool once, or on every crew row — both give the same answer. Effective pay per hour is the number your crew actually feels

Catering Quotes — per-head pricing, minimum spend, travel surcharge beyond your free radius, staff charge, service fee, deposit, and an honest estimated margin that costs your crew at what you PAY them rather than what you bill for them

Settings — every constant in one place: target food, labour and prime cost, card fee, deposit, travel rates, mileage rates and the tax year they belong to

Lists, Start Here and Disclaimer — your dropdowns, a four-step setup, and plain language about what this is and is not


BUILT FOR

Single-truck and two-truck owner-operators. Mobile coffee, dessert, shaved ice and pizza trailers. Event caterers with a mobile unit. Farmers-market and festival regulars. And anyone costing a build-out who wants to know what the numbers have to look like before they sign for the truck.


HOW IT WORKS

1. Open Settings and put in your own targets and rates
2. Enter what you buy on Inventory, then build your menu on Menu Costing
3. Log each event when you get home — one row
4. Open the Dashboard on Monday morning

That is the whole workflow. Everything else is calculated.


COMPATIBILITY

Microsoft Excel 2016, 2019, 365, Windows and Mac
Google Sheets — File, Import, Upload, Replace spreadsheet
LibreOffice Calc and Apple Numbers

No macros. No add-ons. No array formulas. No subscription. Works offline. The file is yours forever.


PLEASE READ BEFORE BUYING

This is a business planning and record-keeping aid, not accounting software and not tax advice.

The IRS mileage rates supplied as defaults are the 2026 figures and 2026 is unusual — the rate changed mid-year, so one tax year holds two rates. Rates change. Check irs.gov each January and update the two cells on the Settings tab. Whether you may claim the standard rate at all depends on your vehicle and how you have claimed before.

Sales tax on prepared food varies by state, county and city, and sometimes by whether the food is eaten on site. The workbook takes one rate you enter; confirm your own.

Permit requirements — health permits, commissary agreements, fire inspections, propane certification, food handler cards — vary by county and city, and trading in a new jurisdiction usually means a new permit. This file tracks the dates you enter. It does not know your local rules.

Tip pooling, overtime, minimum wage and who may legally share in a pool vary by state. Confirm with an employment adviser.

Sample data is fictional and is there to show you the shape of a working file.


WHAT YOU GET

One .xlsx file, delivered instantly on purchase. Free updates. Free customisation help — message the shop and we answer every one.

This is a digital download. Nothing is posted.

📗 HOW TO OPEN IN GOOGLE SHEETS (free & easy):
This is one file that works in BOTH Excel and Google Sheets — there's no separate file to find, you just import the download once:
1. Go to sheets.google.com and open a blank spreadsheet
2. Click File ▸ Import ▸ Upload
3. Drag in the .xlsx file you downloaded from this order
4. Choose "Replace spreadsheet" and click Import data
All tabs load as a full Google Sheet saved in your Drive — edit it on any device. (Prefer Excel? Just double-click the file to open.)

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VIDEO TUTORIAL INCLUDED
This template comes with a step-by-step video walkthrough to help you get set up in minutes. Your tutorial link is included with the instant download.