Content Calendar & Deal Tracker
A free Excel workbook tracking your content pipeline and what you're owed, with automatic overdue alerts and India tax threshold monitoring.
Creator income has a specific failure mode: the work gets delivered, the invoice goes out, and then nobody looks at it again for two months. This workbook is built so that can't happen quietly.
What's inside
What's inside
The dashboard
Updates itself from everything you log. At a glance: total deals, how many are paid versus awaiting payment, total value earned, cash actually received, and what's still outstanding. Plus a content pipeline count showing how many pieces sit at each stage from idea to live.
The deal tracker
One row per brand deal, tracking agreed fee, barter value, total value, invoice date, payment due date, amount received and outstanding balance. Rows turn pink automatically once payment is overdue and green once paid, so you can see the state of your receivables in one glance rather than reading a spreadsheet line by line.
Built-in tax watch
Creator tax in India catches people out in two specific places, both of which the dashboard tracks:
- Barter value logged this year. Under Section 194R, gifted product becomes taxable once value from one brand crosses ₹20,000 in a financial year. The workbook has a dedicated barter column so this is recorded rather than forgotten.
- Threshold headroom. Live calculation of how much more you can earn before GST registration becomes mandatory at ₹20 lakh, and before you lose access to presumptive taxation under Section 44ADA at ₹50 lakh.
Neither is tax advice, but knowing you're three months from a threshold is significantly better than discovering it afterwards. Full tax guide →
How to use it
- Delete the example rows. Row 5 on each tab is filled in to show the expected format.
- Log content in the Calendar tab, brand deals and organic posts together, so you can see clashes before they happen.
- Log every deal in the Deal Tracker, including barter, at retail value.
- Check the dashboard weekly. Overdue rows are the point of the whole thing.
Why creators lose money without a tracker
The failure is rarely dramatic. A creator delivers in March, invoices, and gets paid in June because nobody chased in April. Multiply that across six brands and a meaningful share of annual income is sitting uncollected at any given moment, invisible, because there's no single place showing it.
| What goes wrong | How the tracker catches it |
|---|---|
| Invoice sent, never followed up | Row turns pink the day payment becomes overdue |
| Barter never recorded | Dedicated column, flagged against the ₹20,000 194R threshold |
| Crossing a tax threshold unnoticed | Live headroom calculation for GST and 44ADA |
| Deliverable deadlines colliding | Calendar shows brand and organic content together |
| No record of what you've actually earned | Dashboard totals across every deal logged |
Three habits that make it work
- Log the deal when you agree it, not when you invoice. The gap between those two moments is where deals get forgotten entirely.
- Review the dashboard every Monday. Two minutes. The only question that matters is whether anything turned pink.
- Record barter at retail value on the day it arrives. Reconstructing this at tax time is painful and usually inaccurate.
Common questions
Is there a free content calendar template for influencers?
Yes, this one. It's an Excel workbook with four tabs covering content planning, deal tracking, a live dashboard and India-specific tax threshold alerts. No signup required.
How do creators keep track of brand deal payments?
The reliable method is a single record listing every deal with its agreed fee, invoice date, payment due date and amount actually received, reviewed weekly. This template flags overdue rows automatically so unpaid invoices surface rather than sitting unnoticed.
How should creators track barter and gifted products?
Log every gifted item at its retail value with the date and the brand. Under Section 194R in India, benefits from a single brand exceeding ₹20,000 in a financial year are taxable and attract TDS, so barter needs to be recorded as income, not treated as free.
What should a creator content calendar include?
Publish date, platform, format, the content topic or hook, current production status, the deliverable due date, and whether it's a brand deal or organic. Tracking both types together is what lets you see scheduling clashes before they become a problem.
Price your work, protect your income
Rate Card Calculator
Price any brand deal by followers, engagement, niche, usage rights and exclusivity — using the bands Indian brands actually work from.
Open →How to Negotiate Brand Deals
The order to run a negotiation in, six questions to ask before quoting, and word-for-word scripts for the five conversations that always come up.
Open →Brand Deal Red Flags
The warning signs that show up before a deal goes wrong — screening the brand, reading the terms, and what to do once you are already in.
Open →Stop calculating. Start running campaigns.
Every calculation in these tools is something Ishi does automatically inside Echio.
Book a demo →