Project Status Report Template Permalink

Q: What is a project status report?

A project status report is a short, regular update that tells the people funding or overseeing a project whether it is on track, what changed since the last update, and what they need to decide. Most teams send one weekly to a sponsor, a steering committee or a client, plus an extra one at each major milestone. A useful report answers the same questions in the same order every time: the overall status as a color, progress against the plan, the state of each milestone, the open risks and issues, and the decisions needed. Keeping the structure fixed is what makes reports comparable from week to week, so a reader can spot a slip by noticing what is missing. In the Quire Project Status Report template, each report is one task, its five sections are subtasks, and fields on the task carry the color and the numbers, so the whole run of reports reads as one table.

Q: What should a project status report include?

Five sections, in the order the reader needs them. First, the overall status: one color and two sentences, enough for a sponsor who stops reading there to know whether the date holds. Second, progress against plan: what was planned this period, what got done, and what did not and why, written as the same three lines every time. Third, milestones: the full table of milestones up to launch with Done, On track, At risk or Missed, never deleting a missed one. Fourth, risks and issues, each with an owner and a date, closed in the report when they close. Fifth, decisions needed: the ask, the deadline and the cost of waiting, or the word None when there is nothing to decide. Alongside the text, record the reporting period, percent complete, budget used and the next milestone date as fields, so reports can be sorted and compared. Keep each section under about 120 words.

Q: What does RAG status mean in a project report?

RAG stands for red, amber and green, a three-color summary of a project's health that a busy reader can take in at a glance. In the Quire template the colors are On track, At risk and Off track. Green means the project will hit its date and budget with no help. Amber, shown as yellow, means it can still hit them but has lost its slack, so one more slip will move something. Red means the end date or the budget will move unless someone makes a decision this week. The color is a judgment call by the project manager, not a calculation, and the most common mistake is staying green too long to avoid an awkward conversation. A useful rule: if you cannot say which color it is, it is yellow. Every report should explain its color in the first two sentences, and a change of color should always come with the reason.

Q: How do I write a project status report in Quire?

Duplicate the report skeleton task, move the copy into the This week section, and rename it to the week and the project. Fill in the fields on the task first: RAG Status, Period, Complete (pct), Budget Used (pct), Next Milestone and Audience. Then write the five sections, one in the description of each subtask: overall status, progress against plan, milestones, risks and issues, and decisions needed. Write the decisions section first, since it is the only part that changes what happens next, then write the rest as the evidence for it. Move the report to In review so someone else reads it, then to Sent when it goes out, drag it into Previous reports, and mark it Acknowledged when the sponsor replies. A recurring Friday task reminds the project manager to send it, and if the full report is not ready, the one-line version goes out anyway: the color, one sentence and the ask.

Q: How does the Spend vs Progress formula work?

Spend vs Progress is a Formula field that compares two percentages on the report: Budget Used (pct) and Complete (pct). If the share of budget spent is more than ten points ahead of the share of work completed, it shows Spending ahead of progress in red. If spend is ahead by any smaller amount, it shows Watch in yellow. Otherwise it shows Spend matches progress in green. Nobody types into it, so it recalculates the moment either number changes. It is a separate check from the RAG Status field. RAG is the project manager's judgment about the date and the budget as a whole, while Spend vs Progress is a mechanical check on burn rate. In the sample, the red week shows only Watch, because the problem that week was a vendor bug, not spending. Sort Table view by this field to find the project that is spending faster than it delivers.

Q: How often should a project status report be sent?

Weekly suits most projects with a sponsor or client, and it is the default in the Quire template. Weekly is frequent enough that no problem goes unmentioned for long and infrequent enough that each report has something to say. Long, slow projects can move to every two weeks, with each section running a little longer. Add an extra report at each major milestone, so the record shows what was delivered, what was cut and what the milestone unlocks. Whatever the cadence, keep it fixed and send on the same day, because a missing or late report reads as a hidden problem. When there is genuinely no report for a period, record it as Skipped rather than leaving a gap, so the history stays complete. In Quire, a recurring task on the send day keeps the habit, and changing its repeat setting changes the cadence.

Q: How do I track status report history in Quire?

Keep every report as its own task in one project and never overwrite last week's report with this week's. Old reports move to a Previous reports section once they are sent, so the project accumulates one row per period. Then switch to Table view with all tasks showing and collapse the reports to their top level. Each row is one report, and the RAG Status column read from the bottom up is the project's story: in the sample, green at design sign-off, two more green weeks, a yellow week when migration started late, a red week when a vendor bug paused it, and green again once it was fixed. Complete (pct) and Budget Used (pct) sit in the same rows, so progress and spend trends are visible too. Before a steering meeting, open the sponsor sublist in Table view for the same history limited to what the sponsor has seen.

Q: How do I show the five sections of a report on a board in Quire?

Turn on Task Bundle in Board view. By default Board view shows every subtask as a card of its own, so each report's five sections would spread across the status columns as separate cards. With Task Bundle on, the sections stay nested inside their report's card. Switch to Board view, click the Board icon on the right-hand side of the main panel, and toggle Task bundle on. The columns are the report statuses, Draft, In review, Sent, Acknowledged and Skipped, so the board shows at a glance which report is waiting for review and which have been acknowledged. Each report card also shows its fields, including the RAG color and the Spend vs Progress result, so the current week's numbers are visible without opening the task. Task Bundle is available on the Professional, Premium and Enterprise plans.

Q: Is there a ready-made project status report template in Quire?

Yes. Quire provides a ready-made Project Status Report project at quire.io/w/Project_Status_Report56 that you can duplicate into your own workspace. The sample is a website relaunch reported over six reports: a milestone report at design sign-off, three green weeks, one yellow, one red with an escalation and a decision, and the current week back to green. Each report is a task with five section subtasks, and a blank skeleton report sits in its own section, ready to duplicate each week. Seven custom fields carry the RAG color, the reporting period, percent complete, budget used, the next milestone date, the audience and a Spend vs Progress formula. Five statuses follow the report from Draft to Acknowledged, four tags mark weekly, milestone, escalation and decision-needed reports, two sublists hold the open decisions and the sponsor pack, and a recurring Friday task keeps the habit.

Use this template to write a weekly project status report in Quire: one task per report, five fixed sections as its subtasks, and a RAG color and progress figures as fields. Because every report stays in the project, Table view turns the run of reports into the project’s history.

the project status report template in quire list view, with this week's report above a previous reports section holding every earlier report

You can visit the Project Status Report project and duplicate it to your workspace, so you don’t need to build everything from scratch.

You can also explore more ready-to-use templates to speed up your workflow.

Understand a Status Report

A status report tells the people who fund or oversee a project three things: whether it is on track, what changed since the last report, and what they need to decide. Most teams send one weekly to a sponsor, a steering committee or a client, plus one at each major milestone.

The structure stays the same every time. That is what lets a reader compare this week with last week and notice what is missing.

RAG Status

The overall status is one color, judged by the project manager.

Color	Meaning
🟢 On track	The date and the budget hold with no help
🟡 At risk	They still hold, but the slack is gone
🔴 Off track	The end date or the budget moves unless someone decides something this week

If you cannot say which color it is, it is yellow.

Lay Out the Reports

Each report is one task, and its five subtasks are the sections. Three sections split the project by time:

This week: the report being written, and the recurring Friday task that sends it
Previous reports: every report already sent, one per week
Report skeleton · duplicate me: a blank report with writing prompts in each section

the project status report template in quire list view, with this week's report open to its five sections and earlier reports collapsed

The sample is a website relaunch, told through six reports: a milestone report at design sign-off, three green weeks, one yellow, one red with an escalation, and the current week back to green.

Write the Five Sections

Each section is a subtask, and its description holds the text. Keep each one under about 120 words.

Section	What it is for
1. Overall status	The color and two sentences. A sponsor who stops reading here should still know whether the date holds
2. Progress against plan	The same three lines every week: planned, done, not done and why
3. Milestones	Every milestone to launch, marked Done, On track, At risk or Missed. A missed one is never deleted
4. Risks and issues	A risk might happen, an issue has. Each has an owner and a date, and is closed here when it closes
5. Decisions needed	The ask, the deadline and the cost of waiting. If there is nothing to decide, write None

The skeleton’s subtasks already hold these prompts, so whoever writes the report sees the rules while writing.

Write the Ask First

Section 5 is the only part of a report that changes what happens next. Write it before the other four, then write the rest as the evidence for it.

the decisions needed section of the week 43 report open in the quire detail panel, asking for contractor standby by a set date

Every ask carries a date and a cost of waiting. The red Week 43 report asks for a contractor team on standby by Monday, and spells out that approving two days later costs the launch date. “Please advise on contractors” would not have been answered in time.

Fill In the Report Fields

Seven custom fields sit on each report task. Set them before writing the sections.

Field	Type	What it holds
RAG Status	Select	🟢 On track, 🟡 At risk or 🔴 Off track
Period	Text	The dates the report covers, written out, since the task’s own dates are when it was written
Complete (pct)	Number	How far through the plan the project is, taken from the plan, not the calendar
Budget Used (pct)	Number	How much of the approved budget is spent or committed
Spend vs Progress	Formula	Whether spending is running ahead of progress
Next Milestone	Date	The date of the next milestone
Audience	Select	Sponsor, Steering committee, Client or Team

Spend vs Progress is a formula that compares the two percentages:

{Budget Used (pct)} > {Complete (pct)} + 10 ? "🔴 Spending ahead of progress"
  : ({Budget Used (pct)} > {Complete (pct)} ? "🟡 Watch" : "🟢 Spend matches progress")

Spend more than ten points ahead of progress is red, any smaller lead is yellow, and the rest is green. It is a separate check from RAG Status. In the sample, Week 43 is red but Spend vs Progress shows only Watch: the problem that week was a vendor bug, not spending.

Move the Report Through Review

The statuses follow a report’s life.

Status	Meaning
Draft	Being written
In review	Waiting for a second pair of eyes before it goes out
Sent	Delivered to its audience
Acknowledged	The audience has replied
Skipped	No report this period, recorded so the gap is visible instead of silent

Each week:

Duplicate the task under Report skeleton, move the copy to This week, and rename it to the week and the project.
Set the fields, then write the five sections.
Move the report to In review, then to Sent when it goes out.
Drag it into Previous reports, and mark it Acknowledged when the sponsor replies.

The Friday: send the status report task repeats every Friday. If the full report is not ready by 3 pm, the one-line version goes out anyway: the color, one sentence, the ask. A late report reads as a hidden problem.

On the Board

The Task Bundle feature is only available in Professional, Premium, Enterprise plans. More information can be found on our pricing page.

Board view builds one column per status, so it shows which report is still in review. Turn on Task Bundle from the Board icon so each report’s five sections stay inside its card instead of spreading across the columns as cards of their own.

the week 44 report card in the in review column of quire board view, showing its rag status, period, percentages and spend vs progress

Each card shows the report’s fields, so the current week’s color and numbers are readable without opening the task.

Each section carries a status of its own too, which lets the reviewer sign off one section at a time. In the sample, Week 44 has three sections checked and two still in review.

Read the History in Table View

Table view is only available in the Professional, Premium, Enterprise plans. More information can be found on our pricing page.

Switch to Table view, show All tasks, and collapse the reports to their top row. Each row is now one report.

the project status report template in quire table view with one row per report and the rag status column running from on track to off track and back

Read the RAG Status column from the bottom up and it tells the project’s story: green at design sign-off, green for two weeks, yellow when migration started late, red when a vendor bug paused it, and green again once the fix landed. Complete (pct) sits beside it, climbing from 35 to 72.

A few other ways to read it:

Sort by Spend vs Progress to find the report, or the project, spending faster than it delivers
Group by Audience when one project reports to several people, so the sponsor version and the team version never get mixed up
Filter by the Decision Needed tag to list every open ask, which is the steering committee’s agenda

Two sublists collect reports across the sections. Open decisions holds every report whose section 5 is still waiting for an answer. Sponsor pack · Website relaunch holds every report sent to the sponsor, oldest to newest, for opening in Table view before a steering meeting.

Keep Reports Worth Reading

Two habits make the difference between a report that gets a decision and one that gets filed.

Send on time, even when it is thin. A one-line report on Friday beats a complete one on Tuesday.
Never rewrite history. Last week’s report stays as it was sent. A missed milestone stays in the table, and a skipped week is marked Skipped.

When you adapt the template:

Several projects? Add the project name to each report and group Table view by section, or run one copy of the template per project and read them side by side in a Smart Folder
Every two weeks? Rename the Friday task, change its repeat to every two weeks, and expect each section to run a little longer
Sponsor wants a one-pager? Send the report’s description with the five sections pasted under it. The subtasks are for writing the report, and the reader never needs to see them

Read more on our blog about writing a project status report your stakeholders will read.

Start Your Status Report

Everything on this page can be built by hand. The template is the same thing already assembled: three sections, six sample reports, the skeleton, seven custom fields including the Spend vs Progress formula, five statuses, four tags, two sublists, the recurring Friday task and the how-to document.

Duplicate the Project Status Report project into your workspace, then:

Delete the sample reports in This week and Previous reports.
Rename the skeleton task to your project, and adjust the section prompts if your sponsor expects something different.
Reassign the Friday: send the status report task to whoever writes the report.
On Friday, duplicate the skeleton and write the first report.

the what goes in each section table in the how to use this template document of the project status report template

Point your team at the How to use this template document. It keeps the section rules and field definitions inside the project, for anyone who does not read this guide.

To set the scope and the sponsor before the first report, start with the Project Charter template. To keep the risks in section 4 from living only in prose, pair the reports with the RAID Log template.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a project status report?

A project status report is a short, regular update telling a sponsor or client whether the project is on track, what changed, and what they need to decide. In the Quire template each report is one task with five section subtasks.

What should a project status report include?

Five sections: overall status, progress against plan, milestones, risks and issues, and decisions needed. Record the period, percent complete, budget used and next milestone as fields beside them.

What does RAG status mean in a project report?

RAG stands for red, amber and green. Green means the date and budget hold, amber means the slack is gone, and red means something moves unless a decision is made this week.

How do I write a project status report in Quire?

Duplicate the report skeleton, set the fields, then write the five sections with the decisions section first. Move the report from In review to Sent, and to Acknowledged when the sponsor replies.

How does the Spend vs Progress formula work?

It compares Budget Used (pct) with Complete (pct). Spend more than ten points ahead is red, any smaller lead is yellow, and the rest is green.

How often should a project status report be sent?

Weekly suits most projects, plus one report at each major milestone. Send on the same day every time, and mark a missed week Skipped so the history stays complete.

How do I track status report history in Quire?

Keep every report as its own task and move it to Previous reports once sent. In Table view, the RAG Status column read from the bottom up shows the project’s story.

How do I show the five sections of a report on a board in Quire?

Turn on Task bundle from the Board icon in Board view. Each report’s sections then stay inside its card instead of appearing as separate cards.

Is there a ready-made project status report template in Quire?

Yes. Visit the Project Status Report project and duplicate it to your workspace to get six sample reports, a report skeleton, seven custom fields including the Spend vs Progress formula, and a recurring Friday task.

Please contact us if you need more assistance.