Free template · Excel · version 1

AI ROI tracker template for Excel

A workbook for recording what each AI initiative costs and what it returns, laid out on the rules a CFO checks: a baseline measured and labeled, sign-off by someone other than the preparer, and cash kept apart from freed hours.

Download the template (.xlsx) See every column as text →

No email, no account Imports into Roiva in one step

What's in it

What each sheet is for

The sheets run left to right, roughly in the order you fill them in. Each sheet you type into has its column headers ready, with a dropdown wherever a column takes a fixed list, and the Definitions sheet explains each column of the sheets from Costs to Timings.

Sheet	What it's for
Read me	The rules a tracker keeps, how to keep it, and how to move it into Roiva. Line 2 says which template version this is: Roiva tracker template, version 1.
Initiatives	One row per initiative. Every other sheet names an initiative by the title you give it here.
Costs	One row per cost per month. Every cost counts, whether or not anyone approved it.
Metrics	One row per metric an initiative is measured by, with the baseline it is measured against.
Readings	One row per metric per month after the initiative started.
Assumptions	The rates and figures your formulas use. Add a row when one changes; never overwrite one. The rows are its history.
Formulas	How each value figure is worked out. A changed formula is a new row with a new version, never an edit.
Value entries	One row per initiative per month of value. Only approved rows count, and whoever prepared a row doesn't approve it.
Value inputs	Each input a value figure was worked out from, as it stood when the figure was made. One row per input.
Month close	Each time a month is closed or reopened. A closed month's figures don't change until someone reopens it and says why.
Time studies	One row per time study: one task, timed by the people who do it, with the AI and without it, over a window of days.
Timings	One row per task timed: the hands-on minutes one person spent on it, with the AI or without it. Never change a row; leave a wrong one out in Roiva, with a reason.
Summary	For each initiative on the Initiatives sheet: approved cash value, all cost, cash minus cost and cash ROI, with freed capacity beside them and never added. Live formulas over the sheets before it.
Checks	A count of the rows that break a rule, such as a value entry approved by the person who prepared it. Live formulas; keep every count at zero.
Definitions	Every column of the sheets from Costs to Timings, with what to put in it and the values it accepts: this page, inside the workbook. The Initiatives columns aren't on it; they are the register template's.

Keeping it

How to fill it in

Initiatives first. One row per initiative; only a title is required. Every other sheet names an initiative by that title, so spell it the same way everywhere.
Every cost, every month. A cost counts whether or not anyone approved it. Mark an estimate as one, so it can be replaced by the invoice later.
Metrics, with their baselines. Each metric an initiative is measured by, the figure before the AI, the months that figure covers and how it was measured. An estimate stays labeled as an estimate.
A reading each month. Each metric's figure for each month after the initiative started.
Assumptions and formulas, as history. The rates your formulas use, and the formulas themselves with a version. When one changes, add a row; don't edit the old one.
Value, prepared by one person and approved by another. One row per initiative per month, with its type (a kind of cash, or freed capacity), who prepared it, its status, and who approved it and when. The inputs each figure was worked out from go on the Value inputs sheet.
Close the month you report. A closed month's figures don't change until someone reopens it and records why.
Read Summary, and keep Checks at zero. Summary adds up approved cash value against every cost, with cash ROI and freed capacity beside it, never added. Checks counts the rows that break a rule.

The rules

What makes a figure hold up with a CFO

The workbook is laid out on these rules, and its Read me sheet lists them. They are the rules Roiva itself keeps, and the methodology explains why each one is there.

Only approved value counts, and every cost counts whether anyone approved it or not.
Report value minus cost, never value on its own.
Keep cash apart from freed capacity: report hours saved beside cash, take ROI over cash alone, and count capacity as cash only when a document shows it became cash.
Store each figure with the version of the formula that produced it and the inputs it used.
Record how each baseline was measured, and keep an estimate labeled as an estimate.
Whoever prepared a figure doesn't approve it.
A reported month doesn't change unless someone reopens it and records why.

Excel can show a broken rule but can't refuse one: nothing stops someone approving their own figure or editing a closed month. The Checks sheet counts those rows so a breach is visible on the sheet rather than found at audit. Keeping the counts at zero is up to the people keeping the workbook.

When it outgrows the spreadsheet

Import it into Roiva in one step

The breakpoint is less about the number of initiatives than about sources and people. Once the same vendor shows up in more than one system, or initiatives change owners, the spreadsheet stops being a record and becomes something one person maintains.

Kept as it's laid out, the workbook imports into a Roiva account. An Owner or Admin uploads it under Initiatives → Import → Import a tracker workbook. Roiva shows everything it would create, and every problem by sheet and row, before it creates anything, then creates all of it or none of it.

Initiatives, costs, metrics with their baselines, readings, assumption history, value entries with their inputs, closed months, and time studies with their timings all come in.
Each value entry keeps who prepared it and who approved it and when, as the workbook says. Roiva's approvals history records that the approval was given outside Roiva and brought in by import.
Your Excel formulas don't come in. Each figure stays the figure the workbook had, with the formula's name, version and arithmetic kept beside it.
Roiva's free account has no expiry and needs no card, and measures a set number of initiatives at a time: the pricing page gives the limit. A workbook that would start measuring more than the account has room for is refused, with the numbers, before anything is created.

How the import works, sheet by sheet →

Common questions

AI ROI tracker template — FAQ

Is the AI ROI tracker template free?

Yes. It downloads without an email address or an account, and you can keep using it without ever signing up to Roiva.

How do you calculate AI ROI in a spreadsheet?

For each initiative, take approved cash value minus every cost, and divide by every cost. Leave freed capacity, the hours saved priced at a labor rate, out of that figure and report it beside it, because those hours aren't money the business stopped spending. The template's Summary sheet works it out this way, and leaves out any value a preparer approved themselves.

What should an AI ROI tracker include?

Every cost, whether or not anyone approved it; each metric's baseline and how it was measured; the monthly readings; the formulas and assumptions, with their history; each month's value, with who prepared it and who approved it; and which months are closed. The template has a sheet for each.

Can an AI assistant read the template?

Many assistants can't open an Excel file, so the same layout is published as text: every sheet and every column, in order, with whether it's required and what it takes, on the tracker workbook layout page in Roiva's docs.

Can I move the tracker into Roiva later?

Yes, in one step, as long as it keeps the template's sheets and column headers. Roiva finds each column by its header, so a column of your own is skipped, and a workbook missing a sheet or a required column is refused. Roiva shows what it would create, and every problem by sheet and row, before it creates anything.

Start in the spreadsheet. Bring it into Roiva when it's time.

The free account holds the same record with the controls a spreadsheet can only ask for: value counts once a person approves it, and by default nobody can approve a figure they prepared.

Start free → Download the template