A free Excel Gantt chart and construction programme template for Kiwi builders and trades. Pick a job template, set your start date and link each task to the one before. It works out every date in working days, skips weekends, NZ public holidays, your anniversary day and your Christmas shutdown, and shifts the lot when something runs over.
Pick a template, set a start date and the dates sort themselves out. No colouring in cells by hand.
Residential Build, Renovation, Landscaping, Roofing, Deck & Outdoor, or blank. Stages, tasks, durations and trades are already in.
Type in the day you start on site. Every task works out its own start and finish from there, in working days.
Mark tasks To Do, In Progress, Waiting on Others, Issue or Complete. Change a duration and everything linked to it moves.
A colour-coded Gantt chart with a job summary up top: finish date, working days, % complete, days to go and the next inspection. Late and upcoming tasks get flagged.
Pop your details in and we'll email the template straight to you.
Builders, renovators, landscapers, roofers and carpenters with a crew to keep on track. Juggling several jobs, waiting on council inspections and booking trades around each other? This puts every job on one sheet. Works in Excel 2010 or later.
No more counting days on a calendar
Weekends, NZ public holidays, regional anniversary days and your Christmas shutdown are built in. Work Saturdays? Flip one switch.
One change moves the whole job
Linked tasks follow each other, so three days of rain on the slab pushes frame, lock-up and fit-out without you touching them.
Something to hand the client
Prints on A3 landscape, ready for a client meeting or the site shed wall.
What's Inside
Most schedule templates are a coloured grid you fill in by hand. This one works the dates out for you. Set a start date and link each task to the one before. When rain pushes the slab back three days, change one number and everything after it moves.
Start = finish of the task it follows + 1 working day (or a fixed date you lock in). Finish = start + duration in working days, skipping weekends, public holidays and your shutdown.
Pick your job template and type in the day you start on site.
In the After # column, link each task to the one it follows. Inspections and milestones are already in place.
Lock in a fixed start date for anything already booked, like a crane, a pour or a delivery.
A new home build, eight stages from pre-construction to internal fit-out, using the Residential Build template. Includes Auckland public holidays and a three-week Christmas shutdown (21 Dec to 8 Jan).
Schedules fall over in the same few places. The template catches each one.
Miss Matariki or Waitangi Day and the programme's out before the slab's poured.
Leave a footings or frame inspection off and the next trade turns up to a job they can't start.
One task runs over, nothing else moves, and the client's finish date is already wrong.
A crane or pour booked for a set day gets pushed by the tasks around it. Fixed start dates stop that.
A spreadsheet's a good start, but it lives on one computer, the crew can't see it on site, and it can't tell you what each job's costing. NextMinute's drag-and-drop Gantt chart moves linked tasks when plans change, puts the schedule on your crew's phones, and keeps quotes, timesheets and invoices on the same job.
Reviews
Rated 4.9/5 with 100+ reviews on Google and Facebook, with local NZ support that actually helps.
We’ve answered the ones we hear most from Kiwi builders and tradies.
A build programme template is a ready-made plan that sets out every stage and task with its duration, trade and dates. NextMinute's free Excel template is a Gantt chart that does the date maths for Kiwi builders and trades. Pick a job template, set your start date and link each task to the one it follows, and the job lays itself out in working days. See how NextMinute runs the whole job on the builders page.
Yes. The template works in working days and skips weekends, New Zealand public holidays including Matariki and Waitangi Day, your regional anniversary day and your Christmas shutdown. If your crew works Saturdays, flip one switch to count them. That way a programme that crosses Labour Weekend or Auckland Anniversary still lands on a real finish date. For the hours your crew actually works, see NextMinute timesheets.
Put building consent in as its own task in pre-construction, with a realistic duration for your council, and link site start to it. The Residential Build template already has a building consent task and a consent-issued milestone. When the council comes back early or late, change one number and every linked task after it moves. That gives the client a start date tied to consent, not a guess. For planning across several jobs, see NextMinute job planning.
The Residential Build template includes footings, slab pre-pour, frame, pre-line, waterproofing and final inspections, plus milestones like frame stage, lock-up and handover. In New Zealand the final inspection is what leads to your Code Compliance Certificate, so it's worth leaving a buffer before handover. The summary at the top shows the next inspection and its date, so you can book your council inspector in time. Renovators can find more on the all trades page.
Enter your shutdown dates once and the template treats them as non-working days, the same as weekends and public holidays. Any task that would run into the break picks up again after it, so a job started in November shows its true January finish. Combined with Waitangi Day and anniversary days early in the year, that's often a couple of weeks a quick calendar count would miss. Plan the January start-back across all your jobs in NextMinute.
Yes. Enter the number of the task each one follows in the After # column. Linked tasks start the working day after the one before finishes, so when wet weather pushes the slab out three days, frame, close-in and fit-out all move with it. For anything that can't shift, like a crane, a pour or a GIB delivery, set a fixed start date. NextMinute's mobile app puts the updated plan in front of the crew.
You get six: Residential Build, Renovation, Landscaping, Roofing, Deck & Outdoor, and a blank one. Each has stages, tasks, typical durations and trades filled in, so you start by adjusting a programme, not typing one up. Roofers and landscapers can use theirs as is or trim it to suit smaller jobs. See how NextMinute fits your trade on the roofing and landscaping pages.
Yes. It's set up for A3 landscape, so the whole programme fits on one page for a client meeting or the site office wall. Use the weeks view to show the full build, or days to zoom in on the next fortnight. It works in Microsoft Excel 2010 or later and it's free. Fill in the form on this page and we'll email it to you. More free tools are on the free resources page.
The spreadsheet doesn't connect to Xero. It's a planning tool, so dates live in Excel and invoices live in your accounts. NextMinute does connect: quotes, timesheets and progress invoices on each job sync with Xero, so the schedule and the money stay on the same job. If your accounts already run on Xero, the Xero integration page shows how it works.
When the crew, the office and the client all need the same programme. A spreadsheet sits on one computer and can't show what each job is costing. NextMinute's drag-and-drop Gantt chart moves linked tasks when plans change, puts the schedule on every phone, and keeps quotes, timesheets and invoices on the job. Plans are priced in NZD on the pricing page, or start a free trial.
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