Business case templates
Department of Treasury and Finance business case templates, adapted by Ideas AdvisoryBusiness case templates
Ideas Advisory trains teams across Australia to write business cases that win funding. These are our edition of the Victorian Government business case templates, adapted from the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF) materials and shared as a free learning resource. Use them to practise, to teach, or as a starting point for your own drafting.
DTF remains the official source. For a business case you intend to lodge, use the current templates from DTF, linked below.
The templates
Two forms, each with a companion Excel workbook that handles the financial tables.
Short form: output and low-value asset proposals
For policy (output) bids and lower value asset proposals
Long form: high-value and HVHR asset proposals
For asset initiatives over $10 million and those classified as high value high risk (HVHR), where the greater scrutiny calls for a fuller case.
Enter each financial figure once in the workbook and the tables in the Word document read from it. One dropdown sets the budget year you are targeting, and every year heading and total updates from that single choice, so the set carries over from one budget cycle to the next.
Found an error in a template? Tell us at greg@ideasadvisory.com.au and we'll put it right.
What we changed from the DTF originals
We kept the DTF structure, headings, guidance and content, and adapted the rest:
- added a companion Excel workbook for the financial tables
- added an Ideas Advisory front page and applied our branding
- rebuilt each document on named styles so the formatting holds
- removed the Victorian Government branding and the preemptive protective markings
The front page, the licence note and the how-to-use guidance are built to delete in a couple of clicks before you lodge.
How to use them
- Choose the budget year your bid targets from the dropdown in the workbook.
- Enter your costs and funding in the workbook, not in Word. The document tables read from it.
- Open the Word document and let it update the links, so the tables show your figures.
- Write the narrative, following the DTF guidance in the shaded boxes.
- Before you lodge, delete the shaded guidance, the how-to-use page and the Ideas Advisory cover.
A learning resource, not the official source
These templates are for training and learning. They are not the official or current DTF templates. If you are preparing a real business case, use the current templates and guidance from DTF.
Get the official, current versions from DTF
- Business case guidance — DTF's public business case page.
- Investment Management Standard — the standard, its applications and facilitator guidance.
- Current budget-process templates (VPS access) — the current cost tables and business case templates. Access is for departments, entities and agencies internal to the Victorian Public Sector; request a login from DTF.
Business case training
Learning to write business cases, or want your team to? We run business case training and can help you build a case that stands up to Treasury scrutiny. Contact Ideas Advisory
Licence and attribution
The DTF source material is © State of Victoria, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Ideas Advisory reproduces and adapts it under that licence, with changes made. The Ideas Advisory adaptation and additions, being the front page, the companion workbooks and the restructured templates, are © Ideas Advisory Pty Ltd 2026, also licensed under CC BY 4.0. The Ideas Advisory name and logo are trademarks and are not covered by the licence. Ideas Advisory is not the official or authoritative source for this material.