What it includes
A register with nine columns and twelve illustrative risks, money bands for impact, a heat map that counts the risks in each cell and a top five ranked by score. Every score and count is a formula.
Template
Risk Register Template
A one-page risk register for a business without a risk manager. Score each risk for likelihood and impact, tie it to a measure with a threshold, and the heat map and top five update as you go.
Who it is for
Owners, managing directors and finance leads of businesses with roughly €1m to €50m revenue who need a live register for the board, a lender or an investor, without a risk function.
How to use it
Replace the examples with your own risks and set the impact bands for your size. Review it for 30 minutes each month with the management accounts, and take the top five to the board each quarter.
Plot every risk, then manage the top corner
The heat map tab counts your risks by likelihood and impact as you score them. The ones that score 12 or more get a named action and a date every month; the rest are watched through their measures.
Many of the best measures are already in the monthly accounts: customer concentration, debtor days, cash headroom and margin by line. Stratavor connects read-only to Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage, NetSuite, Deltek Vantagepoint and HubSpot and computes them in code from the ledger, so the measures in your register come from the same numbers as your management accounts. The Power BI add-on carries the same figures into Power BI.
Microsoft and Power BI are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
Frequently asked questions
- What is in the risk register template?
- A register with nine columns (risk, owner, likelihood, impact, score, measure and threshold, controls, next action and trend), twelve illustrative risks most smaller businesses carry, money bands for scoring impact, a heat map that counts the risks in each cell, and a top five ranked by score. Every score, rating and count is a formula.
- How do I score a risk?
- Score likelihood from 1 to 5 over the next 12 months and impact from 1 to 5 using money bands set for your size, then multiply the two. In the template, 12 or more is high, 6 to 11 is medium and 5 or less is low.
- How many risks should a small business track?
- Between 10 and 15. Fewer usually means something important is missing; more means nobody will read the register. Manage the four or five that score highest most closely.
- Does the template work in Google Sheets?
- Yes. It is an Excel .xlsx file, and it also opens in Google Sheets and LibreOffice because the formulas use standard functions.
- Is the template free?
- Yes. Download it and use it as you like; there is no sign-up.