BlogLines.com

5 Tips to Help with Financial Planning

Financial planning means putting your incomes and expenses on a scale to achieve monetary equilibrium or upward mobility on your income levels. Your plan should capture how your current and future risks are covered to protect you from economic uncertainties and losses. Planning helps you to sustain yourself and your family, and so it should be taken as a priority and not a choice. Another aspect of your plan that you should prioritize is your goals either in short, medium and long term and their budgetary requirements.
1. Understand Your Money Mindset
The first tip to having a productive financial plan is to understand your money mindset. If what matters most to you is the present then you fall in the survivor’s list. Survivors also include people who tend to have the urge to satisfy their current desires such as a pricey pair of shoes or a sumptuous snack with little or no thought of the financial implications of their decisions on tomorrow.
Achievers are action oriented and are classified as precious. They have investments, shares and bank deposits. Even if they lose their jobs, they still have something they can bounce back on. However, these actions do not portray financial stability because such people lack intention.
The wealthy people are the strategists. They are long term viewers. All their actions fulfill a purpose, and they seek development in all aspects of their life. They don’t just pump in money in endless investments but instead have fewer investments that are sustainable and profitable but take time to actualize.
Once you understand which money mindset best describes you, you will be able to draft a financial plan that works for you and your needs.
2. Formulate a Financial Plan
No engineer is complete without his measuring tape just as no electrician is complete without his tester. When you draft your plan on paper, you bring your ideas and thoughts to life. A blueprint of your plan enables you to have a reference for your progress. Start by stating your short, middle and long-term goals and then align them with their expenditure and projected profits. You also need to put into consideration your assets and liabilities and how you can maximize and minimize them respectively to achieve your goals.
Implement your plan and then conduct a monitoring and evaluation exercise as per the set timelines and make adjustments where necessary.
The golden rule here is to avoid spending before you have dealt with small/personal debts and bills. Saving does not require you to be earning a lump sum salary. Starting small especially when you are young with minimal responsibilities helps you have enough for investments in the future. Analyze your spending and cut on expenses that are not necessary. It is also advisable to plan for your retirement, even though you might not think about it when you’re young. The earlier you start saving, the more financially stable you will be once you’ve stopped working.
4. Invest in Yourself
The most valuable investment you can make is in yourself. It does not necessarily mean to completely lose you in a classroom trying to amass a good number of degrees. It captures your entire being. Learn to exercise more, travel to different places in the world or your country or attend inspiring and informative talks. When your life gets sucked into these various facets, you get exposed to a lot of things that will eventually guide you in making your financial plan. It is also crucial to build your career and increase your earning potential.
5. Seek Financial Advice
Once you have managed to grow your savings, it is advisable to seek advice from a financial planner to assist you to make sensible investment choices. A wise financial adviser will help you identify the risks involved in potential investments, and provide viable options for maximum returns while helping you achieve your financial goals in the shortest time possible. A financial adviser can also come in handy by helping you prepare a budget. You don’t have to seek financial advice from a financial planner only. You can also talk to a relative or a mentor who is good with money.
MORE FROM BLOGLINES

- Articles and tools
- Start or buy a business
- Start your business

6 steps to making financial projections for your new business
3-minute read
A business plan is one of the key building blocks of any new company. One of its main components should be financial projections for your first two years.
These projections are forecasts of your cash inflows and outlays, income and balance sheet. They show bankers and investors how you will repay loans, what you intend to do with your money and how you will grow. They also help you identify financing needs, optimize your pricing, plan production, time major expenditures and monitor your cash flow.
It’s normal for some of your initial numbers to be rough guesses since sales will usually be hard to predict. Here are the steps to create your financial projections for your start-up.
1. Project your spending and sales
As you develop your business plan , list the key expenditures you will need to make to get your company off the ground and your subsequent costs to operate. Be sure to include recurring expenses—salaries, rent, gas, insurance, marketing, raw materials, maintenance and the like—and one-time purchases, such as machinery, website design and vehicles. Research industry spending to get a better idea of the numbers.
Also, create a sales forecast and use it to project anticipated monthly revenues. A careful study of your potential market will help you arrive at realistic numbers.
2. Create financial projections
Plug your expenses and revenues into a cash flow projection that shows monthly inflows and outflows of money for the first 12 months of operations. For the second year, you can make quarterly or yearly projections.
To create the projections, you can use an Excel spreadsheet or tools available in your accounting software. Don’t assume sales equal cash in the bank right away. Enter them as cash only when you expect to get paid based on industry averages and any prior experiences of your team.
Use your cash flow projections to prepare annual projected income (profit and loss) statements and balance sheet projections.
3. Determine your financial needs
Your financial projections will help you see if your business plans are realistic, whether you’ll have any shortfalls and what financing you may need. The documents will also be vital for building a case for business loans .
4. Use the projections for planning
It can be useful to include various scenarios—most likely, optimistic and pessimistic—for each projection in order to help you foresee the financial impacts of each one.
Your projections can also help you analyze the impacts of different strategies for your new business. What if you charged a different price ? Or were able to collect bills more quickly? Or opted for more efficient equipment? Plugging in various numbers shows how such decisions would affect your finances.
5. Plan for contingencies
What would you do if an unexpected event threw off your projections? It’s a good idea to do some contingency planning ahead of time. Also consider setting aside a cash reserve, just in case. Many entrepreneurs like to have enough cash for 90 days of operations (including cash in the bank and/or room on their line of credit).
As your business starts operations, compare your projections against actual results to check if you’re on target or need to make changes. Monitoring helps you learn about your company’s cash flow cycle and spot looming shortfalls early on, when they’re usually easier to address.
- Search Search Please fill out this field.
- Building Your Business
- Becoming an Owner
- Business Plans
Writing a Business Plan—Financial Projections
Spell out your financial forecast in dollars and sense.
Creating financial projections for your startup is both an art and a science. Although investors want to see cold, hard numbers, it can be difficult to predict your financial performance three years down the road, especially if you are still raising seed money. Regardless, short- and medium-term financial projections are a required part of your business plan if you want serious attention from investors.
The financial section of your business plan should include a sales forecast , expenses budget , cash flow statement , balance sheet , and a profit and loss statement . Be sure to follow the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board , a private-sector organization responsible for setting financial accounting and reporting standards in the U.S. If financial reporting is new territory for you, have an accountant review your projections.
Sales Forecast
As a startup business, you do not have past results to review, which can make forecasting sales difficult. It can be done, though, if you have a good understanding of the market you are entering and industry trends as a whole. In fact, sales forecasts based on a solid understanding of industry and market trends will show potential investors that you've done your homework and your forecast is more than just guesswork.
In practical terms, your forecast should be broken down by monthly sales with entries showing which units are being sold, their price points, and how many you expect to sell. When getting into the second year of your business plan and beyond, it's acceptable to reduce the forecast to quarterly sales. In fact, that's the case for most items in your business plan.
Expenses Budget
What you're selling has to cost something, and this budget is where you need to show your expenses. These include the cost to your business of the units being sold in addition to overhead. It's a good idea to break down your expenses by fixed costs and variable costs. For example, certain expenses will be the same or close to the same every month, including rent, insurance, and others. Some costs likely will vary month by month such as advertising or seasonal sales help.
Cash Flow Statement
As with your sales forecast, cash flow statements for a startup require doing some homework since you do not have historical data to use as a reference. This statement, in short, breaks down how much cash is coming into your business on a monthly basis vs. how much is going out. By using your sales forecasts and your expenses budget, you can estimate your cash flow intelligently.
Keep in mind that revenue often will trail sales, depending on the type of business you are operating. For example, if you have contracts with clients, they may not be paying for items they purchase until the month following delivery. Some clients may carry balances 60 or 90 days beyond delivery. You need to account for this lag when calculating exactly when you expect to see your revenue.
Profit and Loss Statement
Your P&L statement should take the information from your sales projections, expenses budget, and cash flow statement to project how much you expect in profits or losses through the three years included in your business plan. You should have a figure for each individual year as well as a figure for the full three-year period.
Balance Sheet
You provide a breakdown of all of your assets and liabilities in the balances sheet. Many of these assets and liabilities are items that go beyond monthly sales and expenses. For example, any property, equipment, or unsold inventory you own is an asset with a value that can be assigned to it. The same goes for outstanding invoices owed to you that have not been paid. Even though you don't have the cash in hand, you can count those invoices as assets. The amount you owe on a business loan or the amount you owe others on invoices you've not paid would count as liabilities. The balance is the difference between the value of everything you own vs. the value of everything you owe.
Break-Even Projection
If you've done a good job projecting your sales and expenses and inputting the numbers into a spreadsheet, you should be able to identify a date when your business breaks even—in other words, the date when you become profitable, with more money coming in than going out. As a startup business, this is not expected to happen overnight, but potential investors want to see that you have a date in mind and that you can support that projection with the numbers you've supplied in the financial section of your business plan.
Additional Tips
When putting together your financial projections, keep some general tips in mind:
- Get comfortable with spreadsheet software if you aren't already. It is the starting point for all financial projections and offers flexibility, allowing you to quickly change assumptions or weigh alternative scenarios. Microsoft Excel is the most common, and chances are you already have it on your computer. You can also buy special software packages to help with financial projections.
- Prepare a five-year projection . Don’t include this one in the business plan, since the further into the future you project, the harder it is to predict. However, have the projection available in case an investor asks for it.
- Offer two scenarios only . Investors will want to see a best-case and worst-case scenario, but don’t inundate your business plan with myriad medium-case scenarios. They likely will just cause confusion.
- Be reasonable and clear . As mentioned before, financial forecasting is as much art as science. You’ll have to assume certain things, such as your revenue growth, how your raw material and administrative costs will grow, and how effective you’ll be at collecting on accounts receivable. It’s best to be realistic in your projections as you try to recruit investors. If your industry is going through a contraction period and you’re projecting revenue growth of 20 percent a month, expect investors to see red flags.
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Everything that you need to know to start your own business. From business ideas to researching the competition.
Practical and real-world advice on how to run your business — from managing employees to keeping the books.
Our best expert advice on how to grow your business — from attracting new customers to keeping existing customers happy and having the capital to do it.
Entrepreneurs and industry leaders share their best advice on how to take your company to the next level.
- Business Ideas
- Human Resources
- Business Financing
- Growth Studio
- Ask the Board
Looking for your local chamber?
Interested in partnering with us?
Run » finance, how to create a financial forecast for a startup business plan.
Financial forecasting allows you to measure the progress of your new business by benchmarking performance against anticipated sales and costs.
By: Emily Heaslip , Contributor

When starting a new business, a financial forecast is an important tool for recruiting investors as well as for budgeting for your first months of operating. A financial forecast is used to predict the cash flow necessary to operate the company day-to-day and cover financial liabilities.
Many lenders and investors ask for a financial forecast as part of a business plan; however, with no sales under your belt, it can be tricky to estimate how much money you will need to cover your expenses. Here’s how to begin creating a financial forecast for a new business.
[Read more: Startup 2021: Business Plan Financials ]
Start with a sales forecast
A sales forecast attempts to predict what your monthly sales will be for up to 18 months after launching your business. Creating a sales forecast without any past results is a little difficult. In this case, many entrepreneurs make their predictions using industry trends, market analysis demonstrating the population of potential customers and consumer trends. A sales forecast shows investors and lenders that you have a solid understanding of your target market and a clear vision of who will buy your product or service.
A sales forecast typically breaks down monthly sales by unit and price point. Beyond year two of being in business, the sales forecast can be shown quarterly, instead of monthly. Most financial lenders and investors like to see a three-year sales forecast as part of your startup business plan.
Lower fixed costs mean less risk, which might be theoretical in business schools but are very concrete when you have rent and payroll checks to sign.
Tim Berry, president and founder of Palo Alto Software
Create an expenses budget
An expenses budget forecasts how much you anticipate spending during the first years of operating. This includes both your overhead costs and operating expenses — any financial spending that you anticipate during the course of running your business.
Most experts recommend breaking down your expenses forecast by fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs are things such as rent and payroll, while variable costs change depending on demand and sales — advertising and promotional expenses, for instance. Breaking down costs into these two categories can help you better budget and improve your profitability.
"Lower fixed costs mean less risk, which might be theoretical in business schools but are very concrete when you have rent and payroll checks to sign," Tim Berry, president and founder of Palo Alto Software, told Inc . "Most of your variable costs are in those direct costs that belong in your sales forecast, but there are also some variable expenses, like ads and rebates and such."
Project your break-even point
Together, your expenses budget and sales forecast paints a picture of your profitability. Your break-even projection is the date at which you believe your business will become profitable — when more money is earned than spent. Very few businesses are profitable overnight or even in their first year. Most businesses take two to three years to be profitable, but others take far longer: Tesla , for instance, took 18 years to see its first full-year profit.
Lenders and investors will be interested in your break-even point as a projection of when they can begin to recoup their investment. Likewise, your CFO or operations manager can make better decisions after measuring the company’s results against its forecasts.
[Read more: Startup 2021: Writing a Business Plan? Here’s How to Do It, Step by Step ]
Develop a cash flow projection
A cash flow statement (or projection, for a new business) shows the flow of dollars moving in and out of the business. This is based on the sales forecast, your balance sheet and other assumptions you’ve used to create your expenses projection.
“If you are starting a new business and do not have these historical financial statements, you start by projecting a cash-flow statement broken down into 12 months,” wrote Inc . The cash flow statement will include projected cash flows from operating, investing and financing your business activities.
Keep in mind that most business plans involve developing specific financial documents: income statements, pro formas and a balance sheet, for instance. These documents may be required by investors or lenders; financial projections can help inform the development of those statements and guide your business as it grows.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
Follow us on Instagram for more expert tips & business owners’ stories.
To stay on top of all the news impacting your small business, go here for all of our latest small business news and updates .
CO—is committed to helping you start, run and grow your small business. Learn more about the benefits of small business membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here .

Subscribe to our newsletter, Midnight Oil
Expert business advice, news, and trends, delivered weekly
By signing up you agree to the CO— Privacy Policy. You can opt out anytime.
For more finance tips
Navigating tax season.

What Is Business Equity?

Should You Give a Discount for Early Payment?
By continuing on our website, you agree to our use of cookies for statistical and personalisation purposes. Know More
Welcome to CO—
Designed for business owners, CO— is a site that connects like minds and delivers actionable insights for next-level growth.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce 1615 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20062
Social links
Looking for local chamber, stay in touch.
This device is too small
If you're on a Galaxy Fold, consider unfolding your phone or viewing it in full screen to best optimize your experience.
Ascent-logo
What are financial projections and why do you need them.
by Mary Girsch-Bock | Updated Aug. 5, 2022 - First published on May 18, 2022
Image source: Getty Images
If you run a multimillion-dollar empire, it’s likely that your accounting staff is using enterprise-level software that can quickly and easily produce financial projections.
But if you’re a sole proprietor, freelancer, or micro-business owner, you’re likely to use data from your accounting software in order to prepare financial projections, but the software won’t help you in the preparation itself.
While that may sound confusing, it just means that most software applications such as QuickBooks Online , Sage 50cloud Accounting , and Xero can create the financial statements needed for you to prepare your financial projections, but the software itself will not be used in the actual creation of the projections.
At a glance: How you can create and utilize financial projections
- Three financial statements -- a balance sheet , income statement , and cash-flow statement -- are required for any financial projections you create.
- New businesses need financial projections, too. If you’re still in the planning stages, be aware that you will still need to prepare projections for your business plan.
- You’ll likely be using a template to prepare your projections. While accounting software provides the basis for your financial projections, most small business accounting software applications aren’t capable of producing financial projections.
Overview: What are financial projections?
Financial projections are an important part of managing your business. Preparing financial projections may seem like a daunting task for small business owners, but if you can create financial statements, you can create financial projections. Similar to creating a budget , financial projections are a way to forecast future revenue and expenses for your business.
Frequently used as a way to attract future investors, financial projections are also an important component when preparing a business plan for a new business or creating a strategic plan for your current business.
You can create both short-term and long-term financial projections, with most business owners using both types of projections:
Short-term projections: Short-term projections usually cover a year and are typically broken down by month.
Long-term projections : Long-term projections typically cover the next three to five years and are usually used when creating a strategic plan, or for attracting investors.
What are financial projections used for?
Financial projections can be used in a variety of ways, but they’re usually used to attract investors or when applying for a bank loan or line of credit.
Here are a few situations that would call for financial projections:
- You’re creating a business plan: One of the first things potential investors or banks want to see is a financial projection for your business, even if it isn’t operational yet.
- You’re hoping to attract investors: When looking to invest in a business, investors typically look for financial viability. No one will invest in a business without a financial projection that outlines variables such as expenses, revenue, and growth patterns .
- You’re applying for a loan or line of credit: Again, banks or other financial institutions are interested in the financial health of your business. This means providing them not just with current financial statements that outline current business performance, but also where you see your business next year, and the year after.
- You want to get a better handle on your business: You may not be in the market to attract investors or obtain a bank loan, but you do want to be able to map out your potential growth and create budgets allowing your business grow and thrive. Financial projections can help here, too.
How to create financial projections for your small business
When you’re creating financial projections for your business, the same information is required whether your business is up and running or still in the planning stages.
The difference is whether you can create your projections using historical financial data, or if you’ll need to start from scratch. This includes creating projections based on your own experience in the field, or by doing some market research in the industry in which your business will operate.
Step 1: Create a sales projection
Sales projections are an important component of your financial projections. For existing businesses, you can base your projections on past performance obtained from your financial statements . For instance, if your sales tend to be higher in the summer and fall, you’ll want to include that in your projections.
You’ll also need to take under consideration some outside factors, such as the current and projected health of the economy, whether your inventory may be affected by additional tariffs, and whether there’s been a downturn in your industry.
While we all want to be optimistic about our businesses, be sure to plan realistically.

This is one of Microsoft Excel's templates for sales forecasting. Image source: Author
Those still in the planning stages can follow the exact same plan (minus historical data), but you’ll need to do some additional research into the health of similar businesses in your proposed industry in order to plan as accurately as possible.
Step 2: Create an expense projection
Creating an expense projection may initially seem a bit simpler, because it’s easier to predict possible expenses than it is to predict the buying habits of current or potential customers.
For those working from history, you can predict with some certainty what your fixed expenses are, such as your rent or mortgage, along with recurring expenses such as utilities and payroll.
However, it’s much harder to predict those one-time expenses that have the potential to destroy your business.
What if the roof leaks in your business and destroys 75% of your inventory? What if you import the majority of your inventory from China, and you’re hit with escalating prices?
The “what ifs” can drive any of us crazy. All you can do is project expenses to the best of your ability, and maybe tack on an additional 15% to your initial number.
Step 3: Create a balance sheet projection
If you’re using accounting software and your business has been operational for at least a few months, you’ll be able to create a balance sheet directly from your software.
A balance sheet shows the financial position of your business, listing assets, liabilities, and equity balances for a particular time frame.
When creating your financial projections, you can use your current balance sheet totals to better predict where your business will be one to three years down the road.
For those of you in the planning stages, create a balance sheet based on the information you have collected from industry research.
Step 4: Create an income statement projection
Current business owners can easily create an income statement projection by using your current income statement to estimate your projected numbers.

This Excel template can be used to display revenue, cost of goods sold, expenses, and other income to identify net income. Image source: Author
An income statement provides a view of the net income of your business after things such as cost of goods sold, taxes, and other expenses have been subtracted.
This can give you a good idea of how your business is currently performing as well as serve as the basis for estimating net income for the next one to three years.
If you're in the planning stages, producing a possible income statement demonstrates that you’ve done your research and have created a good-faith estimate of your income for the next three years.
If you’re not sure where to start, visit market research firms such as Allied Market Research, which can give you an overview of your targeted industry, including product sales, target markets, and current and expected industry growth levels.
Step 5: Create a cash flow projection
The last step in completing your financial projection is the cash flow statement . The cash flow statement ties into both the income statement and the balance sheet, displaying any cash or cash-related activities that affect your business.
The cash flow statement shows how money is being spent, a must for those looking to attract an investor or obtain financing.
Again, you can use your current cash flow statement if your business has been operational for at least six months, while those of you in the start-up phase can use the data you’ve collected in order to create a credible cash flow projection .
Benefits of using accounting software for your financial projections
If you’re an existing business owner, you’re likely using accounting software to track your financial transactions. If so, the availability of financial reports such as a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement are valuable resources when creating financial projections.
Here are some of the benefits of using accounting software:
- Accuracy: Unless you’re still in the planning stages, having the ability to create various financial reports and transactional histories from your software application helps to ensure your financial projections are based on accurate numbers.
- Availability of data: Being able to pull financial reports can go a long way in preparing financial projections. While you’ll likely create the projections themselves using a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel , the data for your projections is readily available for you and others to access and review.
- Credibility: Being able to include supporting financial statements created by your accounting software with your financial projections lends credibility to your business and signals that you’re serious.
If you’re looking for a template to use to create financial projections, SCORE offers a downloadable financial projections template from Excel.
Finding the best way to create financial projections
While you’ll likely be using a template to create your financial projections, don’t underestimate the important role accounting software plays in creating accurate financial projections -- a necessity if you’re looking for investors or additional financing for your business.
If you’re still using manual ledgers or spreadsheet software to manage your business, it may be time to step up to the next level of professionalism by choosing and implementing an accounting software application that works for your business.
If you’re not sure which accounting software is right for you, be sure to check out our accounting software reviews .
Alert: highest cash back card we've seen now has 0% intro APR until 2024
If you're using the wrong credit or debit card, it could be costing you serious money. Our experts love this top pick , which features a 0% intro APR until 2024, an insane cash back rate of up to 5%, and all somehow for no annual fee.
In fact, this card is so good that our experts even use it personally. Click here to read our full review for free and apply in just 2 minutes.
Read our free review
Our Research Expert

Mary Girsch-Bock is the expert on accounting software and payroll software for The Ascent. She previously worked as an accountant.
We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.

The Ascent is a Motley Fool service that rates and reviews essential products for your everyday money matters.
Copyright © 2018 - 2023 The Ascent. All rights reserved.

How to Create Financial Projections for Your Business
Written by Dave Lavinsky

As an entrepreneur, you spend months, even years coming up with ideas to start or grow your business. Then you write a business plan and try to convince someone (a co-founder, a banker, or an investor) that your idea is worthy of investment. The most crucial part of convincing them is your financial projections.
By creating financial projections, you have the opportunity to see the potential financial forecasting and impact of your ideas. Your financial projections (also known as your financial model) will help you understand the viability of your thoughts and help potential investors or lenders grasp the potential ROI (return on investment) of funding you.
This article will show you how to create financial projections for your business startup or existing business. You will learn what to include in your financial projections, why they are essential, and how you can create them effectively.
Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template Here to Quickly & Easily Complete Your Business Plan & Financial Projections
What are Financial Projections?
Your financial projections will be the most analyzed part of your business plan by investors and/or banks. While never a precise prediction of future performance, an excellent financial model outlines the core assumptions of your business and helps you and others evaluate capital requirements, risks involved, and rewards that successful execution will deliver.
Having a solid framework in place also will help you compare your performance to the financial projections and evaluate how your business is progressing. If your performance is behind your projections, you will have a framework in place to assess the effects of lowering costs, increasing prices, or even reimagining your model. In the happy case that you exceed your financial projections, you can use your framework to plan for accelerated growth, new hires, or additional expansion investments.
Hence, the use of financial projections is multi-fold and crucial for the success of any business. Your financial projections should include three core financial statements – the income statement, the cash flow statement, and the balance sheet. The following section explains each statement in detail.
Necessary Financial Statements
The three financial statements are the income statement, the cash flow statement, and the balance sheet. You will learn how to create each one in detail below.
Income Statement Projection
The projected income statement is also referred to as a profit and loss statement and showcases your business’s revenues and expenses for a specific period.
To create an income statement, you first will need to chart out a sales forecast by taking realistic estimates of units sold and multiplying them by price per unit to arrive at a total sales number. Then, estimate the cost of these units and multiply them by the number of units to get the cost of sales. Finally, calculate your gross margin by subtracting the cost of sales from your sales.
Once you have calculated your gross margin, deduct items like wages, rent, marketing costs, and other expenses that you plan to pay to facilitate your business’s operations. The resulting total represents your projected operating income, which is a critical business metric.
Plan to create an income statement monthly until your projected break-even, or the point at which future revenues outpace total expenses, and you reflect operating profit. From there, annual income statements will suffice.
Consider a sample income statement for a retail store below:
Cash Flow Projection
As the name indicates, a cash flow statement shows the cash flowing in and out of your business. The cash flow statement incorporates cash from business operations and includes cash inflows and outflows from investment and financing activities to deliver a holistic cash picture of your company.
Investment activities include purchasing land or equipment or research & development activities that aren’t necessarily part of daily operations. Cash movements due to financing activities include cash flowing in a business through investors and/or banks and cash flowing out due to debt repayment or distributions made to shareholders.
You should total all these three components of a cash flow projection for any specified period to arrive at a total ending cash balance. Constructing solid cash flow projections will ensure you anticipate capital needs to carry the business to a place of sustainable operations.
Below is a simple cash flow statement for the same retail store:
Balance Sheet Projection
A balance sheet shows your company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity for a certain period and provides a snapshot in time of your business performance. Assets include things of value that the business owns, such as inventory, capital, and land. Liabilities, on the other hand, are legally bound commitments like payables for goods or services rendered and debt. Finally, owner’s equity refers to the amount that is remaining once liabilities are paid off. Assets must total – or balance – liabilities and equity.
Your startup financial documents should include annual balance sheets that show the changing balance of assets, liabilities, and equity as the business progresses. Ideally, that progression shows a reduction in liabilities and an increase in equity over time.
While constructing these varied financial projections, remember to be flexible. You likely will need to go back and forth between the different financial statements since working on one will necessitate changes to the others.
Below is a simple balance sheet for the retail store:
How to Finish Your Business Plan and Financial Projections in 1 Day!
Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your plan and financial projections?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
Creating Financial Projections
When it comes to financial forecasting, simplicity is key. Your financial projections do not have to be overly sophisticated and complicated to impress, and convoluted projections likely will have the opposite effect on potential investors. Keep your tables and graphs simple and fill them with credible data that inspires confidence in your plan and vision. The below tips will help bolster your financial projections.
Create a List of Assumptions
Your financial projections should be tied to a list of assumptions. For example, one assumption will be the initial monthly cash sales you achieve. Another assumption will be your monthly growth rate. As you can imagine, changing either of these assumptions will significantly impact your financial projections.
As a result, tie your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements to your assumptions. That way, if you change your assumptions, all of your financial projections automatically update.
Below are the key assumptions to include in your financial model:
For EACH essential product or service you offer:
- What is the number of units you expect to sell each month?
- What is your expected monthly sales growth rate?
- What is the average price that you will charge per product or service unit sold?
- How much do you expect to raise your prices each year?
- How much does it cost you to produce or deliver each unit sold?
- How much (if at all) do you expect your direct product costs to grow each year?
For EACH subscription/membership, you offer:
- What is the monthly/quarterly/annual price of your membership?
- How many members do you have now, or how many members do you expect to gain in the first month/quarter/year?
- What is your projected monthly/quarterly/annual growth rate in the number of members?
- What is your projected monthly/quarterly/annual member churn (the percentage of members that will cancel each month/quarter/year)?
- What is the average monthly/quarterly/annual direct cost to serve each member (if applicable)?
Cost Assumptions
- What is your monthly salary? What is the annual growth rate in your salary?
- What is your monthly salary for the rest of your team? What is the expected annual growth rate in your team’s salaries?
- What is your initial monthly marketing expense? What is the expected annual growth rate in your marketing expense?
- What is your initial monthly rent + utility expense? What is the expected annual growth rate in your rent + utility expense?
- What is your initial monthly insurance expense? What is the expected annual growth rate in your insurance expense?
- What is your initial monthly office supplies expense? What is the expected annual growth rate in your office supplies expense?
- What is your initial monthly cost for “other” expenses? What is the expected annual growth rate in your “other” expenses?
Assumptions related to Capital Expenditures, Funding, Tax, and Balance Sheet Items
- How much money do you need for Capital Expenditures in your first year (to buy computers, desks, equipment, space build-out, etc.)?
- How much other funding do you need right now?
- What percent of the funding will be financed by Debt (versus equity)?
- What Corporate Tax Rate would you like to apply to company profits?
- What is your Current Liabilities Turnover (in the number of days)?
- What are your Current Assets, excluding cash (in the number of days)?
- What is your Depreciation rate?
- What is your Amortization number of Years?
- What is the number of years in which your debt (loan) must be paid back?
- What is your Debt Payback interest rate?
Create Two Scenarios
It would be best if you used your assumptions to create two sets of financial projections that exhibit two very different scenarios. One is your best-case scenario, and the other is your worst-case. Investors are usually very interested in how a business plan will play out in both these scenarios, allowing them to better analyze the robustness and potential profitability of a business.
Conduct a Ratio Analysis
Gain an understanding of average industry financial ratios, including operating ratios, profitability ratios, return on investment ratios, and the like. You can then compare your own estimates with these existing ratios to evaluate costs you may have overlooked or find historical financial data to support your projected performance. This ratio analysis helps ensure your financial projections are neither excessively optimistic nor excessively pessimistic.
Be Realistic
It is easy to get carried away when dealing with estimates and you end up with very optimistic financial projections that will feel untenable to an objective audience. Investors are quick to notice and question inflated figures. Rather than excite investors, such scenarios will compromise your legitimacy.
Create Multi-Year Financial Projections
The first year of your financial projections should be presented on a granular, monthly basis. For subsequent years, annual projections will suffice. It is advised to have three- or five-year projections ready when you start courting investors. Since your plan needs to be succinct, you can add yearly projections as appendices to your main plan.
You should now know how to create financial projections for your business plan. In addition to creating your full projections as their own document, you will need to insert your financial projections into your plan. In your executive summary, Insert your topline projections, that is, just your sales, gross margins, recurring expenses, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), and net income). In the financial plan section of your plan, insert your key assumptions and a little more detail than your topline projections. Include your full financial model in the appendix of your plan.
Other Resources for Writing Your Business Plan
- How to Write an Executive Summary
- How to Expertly Write the Company Description in Your Business Plan
- How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan
- The Customer Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
- Completing the Competitive Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
- How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan + Examples
- Financial Assumptions and Your Business Plan
- Everything You Need to Know about the Business Plan Appendix
- Business Plan Conclusion: Summary & Recap
Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates


Original text

Financial projections use existing or estimated financial data to forecast your business’s future income and expenses. They often include different scenarios so you can see how changes to one aspect of your finances (such as higher sales or lower operating expenses) might affect your profitability.
If you need to create financial projections for a startup or existing business, this free, downloadable template includes all the tools you need.
What are financial projections used for.
Financial projections are an important business planning tool for several reasons.
- If you’re starting a business, financial projections help you plan your startup budget, assess when you can expect the business to become profitable, and set benchmarks for achieving financial goals.
- If you’re already in business, creating financial projections each year can help you set goals and stay on track.
- When seeking outside financing, both startups and existing businesses will need financial projections to convince lenders and investors of the business’s growth potential.
What’s Included in Financial Projections?
This financial projections template pulls together several different financial documents, including:
- Startup expenses
- Payroll costs
- Sales forecast
- Operating expenses for the first 3 years of business
- Cash flow statements for the first 3 years in business
- Income statements for the first 3 years in business
- Balance sheet
- Break-even analysis
- Financial ratios
- Cost of goods sold (COGS), and
- Amortization and depreciation for your business.
You can either use this template to create the documents from scratch or pull in information from documents you’ve already created. The template also includes diagnostic tools you can use to test the numbers in your financial projections and make sure they are within reasonable ranges.
All of these areas are closely related, so as you work on your financial projections, you’ll find that changes to one element affect the others. You may want to include a best-case and worst-case scenario to account for all possibilities. Make sure you know the assumptions behind your financial projections and can explain them to others.
Startup business owners often wonder how to create financial projections for a business that doesn’t exist yet. Financial projections are always educated guesses. To make yours as accurate as possible, do your homework and get help. Use the information you unearthed in researching your business plans, such as statistics from industry associations, data from government sources, and financials from similar businesses. An accountant with experience in your industry can be useful in fine-tuning your financial projections. So can business advisors such as SCORE mentors.
Once you complete your financial projections, don’t put them away and forget about them. Compare your projections to your actual financial statements on a regular basis to see how well your business is meeting your expectations. If your projections turn out to be too optimistic or too pessimistic, make the necessary adjustments to make them more accurate.
*NOTE: The cells with formulas in this workbook are locked. If changes are needed, the unlock code is "1234." Please use caution when unlocking the spreadsheets. If you want to change a formula, we strongly recommend that you save a copy of this spreadsheet under a different name before doing so.
For assistance in completing this template, we recommend downloading the Financial Projections Template Guide in English or Espanol .
You can also see a completed sample by downloading the Ann's Nursery Example .
Do you need help creating your financial projections? Take SCORE’s online course on-demand on financial projections or connect with a SCORE mentor online or in your community today.
Simple Steps for Starting Your Business: Module 4 - Financial Projections In this online module, you'll learn the importance of financial planning, how to build your financial model, how to understand financial statements and more.
Business Planning & Financial Statements Template Gallery Download SCORE’s templates to help you plan for a new business startup or grow your existing business.
Copyright © 2023 SCORE Association, SCORE.org
Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.
Clients and results

We saved more than $1 million on our spend in the first year and just recently identified an opportunity to save about $10,000 every month on recurring expenses with Planergy.


Cristian Maradiaga
Download a free copy of "preparing your ap department for the future", to learn:.
- How to transition from paper and excel to eInvoicing.
- How AP can improve relationships with your key suppliers.
- How to capture early payment discounts and avoid late payment penalties.
- How better management in AP can give you better flexibility for cash flow management.
Business Plan Financial Projections: How To Create Accurate Targets
- Written by Keith Murphy
- 16 min read

Small businesses and startups have a lot riding on their ability to create effective and accurate financial projections as part of their business plan. Solid financials are a strong enticement for investors, after all, and can help new businesses chart a course that will take them beyond the legendendarily difficult first year and into a productive and profitable future.
But the need for business owners to look ahead in order to secure funding, increase profits, and make intelligent financial decisions doesn’t end when startups become full-fledged businesses—and business plan financial projections aren’t just for startups. Existing businesses can also put them to good use by harvesting insights from their existing financial statements and creating sales projections and other financial forecasts that guide and improve their ongoing business planning.
What Are Business Plan Financial Projections?
Successful companies plan ahead, looking as best they can into the near and distant future to chart a course to growth, innovation, and competitive strength. Financial projections, both as part of an initial business plan and as part of ongoing business planning, use a company’s financial statements to help business owners forecast their upcoming expenses and revenue in a strategically useful way.
Most businesses use two types of financial projections:
- Short-term projections are broken down by month and generally cover the coming 12 months. They provide a guide companies can use to monitor and adjust their financial activity to set and hit targets for the financial year. In the first year, short-term projections will be entirely estimated, but in subsequent years, historical data can be used to help fine-tune them for greater accuracy and strategic utility.
- Long-term projections are focused on the coming three to five years and are generally used to secure investment (both initial and ongoing), provide a strategic roadmap for the company’s growth, or both.
For startups, creating financial projections is part of their initial business plan. Providing financial forecasts banks and potential investors can use to determine the financial viability of a business is key to obtaining financing and investments needed to get the business off the ground.
For existing businesses—for whom an initial business plan has evolved into business planning—financial projections are useful in attracting investors who want to see clear estimates for upcoming revenue, expenses, and potential growth. They’re also helpful in securing loans and lines of credit from financial institutions for the same reason. And even if you’re not trying to get funding or investments, financial projections provide a useful framework for building budgets focused on growth and competitive advantage.
So whether you’re a small business owner, an aspiring tycoon starting a new business, or part of the financial team at a well-established corporation, what matters most is viewing financial projections as a living, breathing reference tool that can help you plan and budget for growth in a realistic way while still setting aspirational goals for your business.
Financial projections, both as part of an initial business plan and as part of ongoing business planning, use a company’s financial statements to help business owners forecast their upcoming expenses and revenue in a strategically useful way.
Financial Projections: Core Components
Whether you’re preparing them as part of your business plan or to enhance your business planning, you’ll need the same financial statements to prepare financial projections: an income statement, a cash-flow statement, and a balance sheet.
- Income statements , sometimes called profit and loss statements , provide detailed information on your company’s revenue and expenses for a given period (e.g., a quarter, year, or multi-year period).
- Cash flow statements provide a comprehensive view of cash flowing into and out of a business. They record all cash flow from operations, investment, and financing activities.
- Balance sheets are used to showcase a company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity for a specific period.
How to Create Financial Projections
The process of creating financial projections is the same whether you’re drafting a business plan or creating forecasts for an existing business. The primary difference is whether you’ll draw on your own research and expertise (a new business or startup business) or use historical data (existing businesses).
Keep in mind that while you’ll create the necessary documents separately, you’ll most likely finish them by consulting each of them as needed. For example, your sales forecast might change once you prepare your cash-flow statement. The best approach is to view each document as both its own piece of the financial projection puzzle and a reference for the others; this will help ensure you can assemble comprehensive and clear financial projections.
1. Start with a Sales Projection
A sales forecast is the first step in creating your income statement. You can start with a one, three, or five-year projection, but keep in mind that, without historical financial data, accuracy may decrease over time. It’s best to start with monthly income statements until you reach your projected break-even , which is the point at which revenue exceeds total operating expenses and you show a profit. Once you hit the break-even, you can transition to annual income statements.
Also, keep in mind factors outside of sales; market conditions, global environmental, political, and health concerns, sourcing challenges (including pricing changes and increased variable costs) and other business disruptors can put the kibosh on your carefully constructed forecasts if you leave them out of your considerations.
Start with a reasonable estimate of the units sold for the forecast period, and multiply them by the price per unit. This value is your total sales for the period.
Next, estimate the total cost of producing these units (i.e., the cost of goods sold , or COGS; sometimes called cost of sales ) by multiplying the per-unit cost by the number of units produced.
Deducting your COGS from your estimated sales yields your gross profit margin.
From the gross margin, subtract expenses such as wages, marketing costs, rent, and other operating expenses. The result is your projected operating income , or net income .
Using these figures, you can create an income statement:
2. Cash Flow Statement
Tracking your estimated cash inflows and outflows from investment and financing, combined with the cash generated by business operations, is the purpose of a cash flow projection .
Investment activities might include, for example, purchasing real estate or investing in research and development outside of daily operations.
Financing activities include cash inflows from investor funding or business loans, as well as cash outflows to repay debts or pay dividends to shareholders.
A reliable and accurate cash flow projection is essential to managing your working capital effectively and ensuring you have all the cash you need to cover your ongoing obligations while still having enough left to invest in growth and innovation or cover emergencies.
Drawing from our income statement, we can create a basic cash flow statement:
3. The Balance Sheet
Providing a “snapshot” of your businesses’ financial performance for a given period of time, the balance sheet contains your company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity.
Assets include inventory, real estate, and capital, while liabilities represent financial obligations and include accounts payable, bank loans, and other debt.
Owner’s equity represents the amount remaining once liabilities have been paid.
Ideally, over time your company’s balance sheet will reflect your growth through a reduction of liabilities and an increase in owner’s equity.
We can complete our triumvirate of financial statements with a basic balance sheet:
Best Practices for Effective Financial Projections
Like a lot of other business processes, financial planning can be complex, time-consuming, and even frustrating if you’re still using manual workflows and paper documents or basic spreadsheet-style applications such as Microsoft Excel. You can get free templates for basic financial projections from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), but even templates can only take you so far.
Without a doubt, the best advantage you can give yourself in creating effective and accurate financial projections—whether they’re for the financial section of your business plan or simply part of your ongoing business planning—is to invest in comprehensive procure-to-pay (P2P) software such as Planergy.
In addition to helpful templates, best-in-class P2P software also provides a rich array of real-time data analysis, reporting, and forecasting tools that make it easy to transform historical data (or market research) into accurate forecasts. In addition, artificial intelligence and process automation make it easy to collect, organize, manage and share your data with all internal stakeholders, so everyone has the information they need to create the most useful and complete forecasts and projections possible.
Beyond investing in P2P software, you can also improve the quality and accuracy of your financial projections by:
- Doing your homework. Invest in financial statement analysis and ratio analysis, with a focus not just on your own company, but your industry and the market in general. Learn the current ratios used for liquidity analysis, profitability, and debt and compare them to your own to get a more nuanced and useful understanding of how your company performs internally and within the context of the marketplace.
- Keeping it real. It can be all too easy to get carried away with pie-in-the-sky optimism when forecasting the future of your business. Rose-colored glasses aren’t exclusive to startups and small businesses; over-inflated estimates can hobble even veteran organizations if they don’t practice good data discipline and temper their hopes with practical considerations. Focus on creating realistic, but positive, projections, and you won’t have to worry about investors or lenders glancing askance at your hard work.
- Hoping for the best, but planning for the worst. Run two scenarios when performing your financial projections: the best-case scenario where everything goes perfectly to plan, and a worse-case scenario where Murphy’s Law holds sway. While actual performance will undoubtedly fall somewhere in between the two, having an upper and lower boundary appeals to investors and lenders who are assessing your company’s financial viability.
Financial Projections Help You Reach Your Goals for Growth
From startups to global corporations, every business needs reliable tools for financial forecasting. Take the time to create well-researched, data-driven financial projections, and you’ll be well-equipped to attract investors, secure funding, and chart a course for greater profits, growth, and performance in today’s competitive marketplace.
What’s your goal today?
1. use planergy to manage purchasing and accounts payable.
- Read our case studies, client success stories, and testimonials.
- Visit our “Solutions” page to see the areas of your business we can help improve to see if we’re a good fit for each other.
- Learn about us, and our long history of helping companies just like yours.
2. Download our guide “Preparing Your AP Department For The Future”
3. learn best practices for purchasing, finance, and more.
Browse hundreds of articles , containing an amazing number of useful tools, techniques, and best practices. Many readers tell us they would have paid consultants for the advice in these articles.
Related Posts

GL Accounts: What Are They and How Do They Work in Double-Entry Accounting
- 14 min read

Demand Forecasting Methods: Choosing The Right Type For Your Business
- 20 min read

Tips for Managing Working Capital Effectively
- 18 min read
PROCUREMENT
- Purchasing Software
- Purchase Order Software
- Procurement Solutions
- Procure-to-Pay Software
- E-Procurement Software
- PO System For Small Business
- Spend Analysis Software
- Vendor Management Software
- Inventory Management Software
AP & FINANCE
- Accounts Payable Software
- AP Automation Software
- Compliance Management Software
- Business Budgeting Software
- Workflow Automation Software
- Integrations
- Reseller Partner Program
Business is Our Business
Stay up-to-date with news sent straight to your inbox
Sign up with your email to receive updates from our blog
This website uses cookies
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you’ve provided to them or that they’ve collected from your use of their services.
Read our privacy statement here .
How to Write a Financial Plan for Your Small Business — 2022 Guide

Building a financial plan can be the most intimidating part of writing your business plan . It’s also one of the most vital. Businesses that have a full financial plan in place more prepared to pitch to investors, receive funding, and achieve long-term success.
Thankfully, you don’t need an accounting degree to successfully put one together. All you need to know is the key elements and what goes into them. Read on for the six components that need to go into your financial plan and successfully launch your business.
What is a financial plan?
A financial plan is simply an overview of your current business financials and projections for growth. Think of any documents that represent your current monetary situation as a snapshot of the health of your business and the projections being your future expectations.
Why is a financial plan important for your business?
As said before, the financial plan is a snapshot of the current state of your business. The projections, inform your short and long-term financial goals and gives you a starting point for developing a strategy.
It helps you, as a business owner, set realistic expectations regarding the success of your business. You’re less likely to be surprised by your current financial state and more prepared to manage a crisis or incredible growth, simply because you know your financials inside and out.
And aside from helping you better manage your business, a thorough financial plan also makes you more attractive to investors. It makes you less of a risk and shows that you have a firm plan and track record in place to grow your business.
Components of a successful financial plan
All business plans, whether you’re just starting a business or building an expansion plan for an existing business, should include the following:
- Profit and loss statement
- Cash flow statement
- Balance sheet
- Sales forecast
- Personnel plan
- Business ratios and break-even analysis
Even if you’re in the very beginning stages, these financial statements can still work for you.

How to write a financial plan for your small business
The good news is that they don’t have to be difficult to create or hard to understand. With just a few educated guesses about how much you might sell and what your expenses will be, you’ll be well on your way to creating a complete financial plan.
1. Profit and loss statement
This is a financial statement that goes by a few different names—profit and loss statement, income statement, pro forma income statement, P&L (short for “profit and loss”)— and is essentially an explanation of how your business made a profit (or incur a loss) over a certain period of time.
It’s a table that lists all of your revenue streams and all of your expenses—typically over a three-month period—and lists at the very bottom the total amount of net profit or loss.
There are different formats for profit and loss statements, depending on the type of business you’re in and the structure of your business (nonprofit, LLC, C-Corp, etc.).
What to include in your profit and loss statement
- Your revenue (also called sales)
- Your “cost of sale” or “cost of goods sold” (COGS)—keep in mind, some types of companies, such as a services firm, may not have COGS
- Your gross margin, which is your revenue less your COGS
These three components (revenue, COGS, and gross margin) are the backbone of your business model — i.e., how you make money.
You’ll also list your operating expenses, which are the expenses associated with running your business that isn’t directly associated with making a sale. They’re the fixed expenses that don’t fluctuate depending on the strength or weakness of your revenue in a given month—think rent, utilities, and insurance.
How to find operating income
To find your operating income with the P&L statement you’ll take the gross margin less your operating expenses:
Gross Margin – Operating Expenses = Operating Income
Depending on how you classify some of your expenses, your operating income will typically be equivalent to your “earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization” (EBITDA). This is basically, how much money you made in profit before you take your accounting and tax obligations into consideration. It may also be called your “profit before interest and taxes,” gross profit, and “contribution to overhead”—many names, but they all refer to the same number.
How to find net income
Your so-called “bottom line”—officially, your net income, which is found at the very end (or, bottom line) of your profit and loss statement—is your EBITDA less the “ITDA.” Just subtract your expenses for interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization from your EBITDA, and you have your net income:
Operating Income – Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization Expenses = Net Income
For further reading on profit and loss statements (a.k.a., income statements), including an example of what a profit and loss statement actually looks like, check out “ How to Read and Analyze an Income Statement.” And if you want to start building your own, download our free Profit and Loss Statement Template .
2. Cash flow statement
Your cash flow statement is just as important as your profit and loss statement. Businesses run on cash —there are no two ways around it. A cash flow statement is an explanation of how much cash your business brought in, how much cash it paid out, and what its ending cash balance was, typically per-month.
Without a thorough understanding of how much cash you have, where your cash is coming from, where it’s going, and on what schedule, you’re going to have a hard time running a healthy business . And without the cash flow statement, which lays that information out neatly for lenders and investors, you’re not going to be able to raise funds.
The cash flow statement helps you understand the difference between what your profit and loss statement reports as income—your profit—and what your actual cash position is.
It is possible to be extremely profitable and still not have enough cash to pay your expenses and keep your business afloat. It is also possible to be unprofitable but still have enough cash on hand to keep the doors open for several months and buy yourself time to turn things around —that’s why this financial statement is so important to understand.
Cash versus accrual accounting
There are two methods of accounting—the cash method and the accrual method.
The accrual method means that you account for your sales and expenses at the same time—if you got a big preorder for a new product, for example, you’d wait to account for all of your preorder sales revenue until you’d actually started manufacturing and delivering the product. Matching revenue with the related expenses is what’s referred to as “the matching principle,” and is the basis of accrual accounting.
The cash method means that you just account for your sales and expenses as they happen, without worrying about matching up the expenses that are related to a particular sale or vice versa.
If you use the cash method, your cash flow statement isn’t going to be very different from what you see in your profit and loss statement. That might seem like it makes things simpler, but I actually advise against it.
I think that the accrual method of accounting gives you the best sense of how your business operates and that you should consider switching to it if you aren’t using it already.
Why you should use accrual accounting for cash flow
For the best sense of how your business operates, you should consider switching to accrual accounting if you aren’t using it already.
Here’s why: Let’s say you operate a summer camp business. You might receive payment from a camper in March, several months before camp actually starts in July—using the accrual method, you wouldn’t recognize the revenue until you’ve performed the service, so both the revenue and the expenses for the camp would be accounted for in the month of July.
With the cash method, you would have recognized the revenue back in March, but all of the expenses in July, which would have made it look like you were profitable in all of the months leading up to the camp, but unprofitable during the month that camp actually took place.
Cash accounting can get a little unwieldy when it comes time to evaluate how profitable an event or product was, and can make it harder to really understand the ins and outs of your business operations. For the best look at how your business works, accrual accounting is the way to go.
3. Balance sheet
Your balance sheet is a snapshot of your business’s financial position—at a particular moment in time, how are you doing? How much cash do you have in the bank, how much do your customers owe you, and how much do you owe your vendors?
What to include in your balance sheet
- Assets: Your accounts receivable, money in the bank, inventory, etc.
- Liabilities: Your accounts payable, credit card balances, loan repayments, etc.
- Equity: For most small businesses, this is just the owner’s equity, but it could include investors’ shares, retained earnings, stock proceeds, etc.
It’s called a balance sheet because it’s an equation that needs to balance out:
Assets = Liabilities + Equity
The total of your liabilities plus your total equity always equals the total of your assets.
At the end of the accounting year, your total profit or loss adds to or subtracts from your retained earnings (a component of your equity). That makes your retained earnings your business’s cumulative profit and loss since the business’s inception.
However, if you are a sole proprietor or other pass-through tax entity, “retained earnings” doesn’t really apply to you—your retained earnings will always equal zero, as all profits and losses are passed through to the owners and not rolled over or retained like they are in a corporation.
If you’d like more help creating your balance sheet, check out our free downloadable Balance Sheet Template .
4. Sales forecast
The sales forecast is exactly what it sounds like: your projections, or forecast, of what you think you will sell in a given period. Your sales forecast is an incredibly important part of your business plan, especially when lenders or investors are involved, and should be an ongoing part of your business planning process.
Your sales forecast should be an ongoing part of your business planning process.
You should create a forecast that is consistent with the sales number you use in your profit and loss statement. In fact, in our business planning software, LivePlan , the sales forecast auto-fills the profit and loss statement.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of sales forecast—every business will have different needs. How you segment and organize your forecast depends on what kind of business you have and how thoroughly you want to track your sales.
Generally, you’ll want to break down your sales forecast into segments that are helpful to you for planning and marketing purposes.
If you own a restaurant, for example, you’ll want to separate your forecasts for dinner and lunch sales. But a gym owner may find it helpful to differentiate between the membership types. If you want to get really specific, you might even break your forecast down by product, with a separate line for every product you sell.
Along with each segment of forecasted sales, you’ll want to include that segment’s “cost of goods sold” (COGS). The difference between your forecasted revenue and your forecasted COGS is your forecasted gross margin.
5. Personnel plan
Think of the personnel plan as a justification of each team member’s necessity to the business.
The overall importance of the personnel plan depends largely on the type of business you have. If you are a sole proprietor with no employees, this might not be that important and could be summarized in a sentence of two. But if you are a larger business with high labor costs, you should spend the time necessary to figure out how your personnel affects your business.
If you opt to create a full personnel plan, it should include a description of each member of your management team, and what they bring to the table in terms of training, expertise, and product or market knowledge. Think of this as a justification of each team member’s necessity to the business, and a justification of their salary (and/or equity share, if applicable). This would fall in the company overview section of your business plan.
You can also choose to use this section to list entire departments if that is a better fit for your business and the intentions you have for your business plan . There’s no rule that says you have to list only individual members of the management team.
This is also where you would list team members or departments that you’ve budgeted for but haven’t hired yet. Describe who your ideal candidate(s) is/re, and justify your budgeted salary range(s).
6. Business ratios and break-even analysis
Business ratios explained.
If you have your profit and loss statement, your cash flow statement, and your balance sheet, you have all the numbers you need to calculate the standard business ratios . These ratios aren’t necessary to include in a business plan—especially for an internal plan—but knowing some key ratios is always a good idea.
Common profitability ratios include:
- Gross margin
- Return on sales
- Return on assets
- Return on investment
Common liquidity ratios include:
- Debt-to-equity
- Current ratio
- Working capital
Of these, the most common ratios used by business owners and requested by bankers are probably gross margin, return on investment (ROI), and debt-to-equity.
Break-even analysis explained
Your break-even analysis is a calculation of how much you will need to sell in order to “break-even” i.e. cover all of your expenses.
In determining your break-even point, you’ll need to figure out the contribution margin of what you’re selling. In the case of a restaurant, the contribution margin will be the price of the meal less any associated costs. For example, the customer pays $50 for the meal. The food costs are $10 and the wages paid to prepare and serve the meal are $15. Your contribution margin is $25 ($50 – $10 – $15 = $25).
Using this model you can determine how high your sales revenue needs to be in order for you to break even. If your monthly fixed costs are $5,000 and you average a 50 percent contribution margin (like in our example with the restaurant), you’ll need to have sales of $10,000 in order to break even.
Make financial planning a recurring part of your business
Your financial plan might feel overwhelming when you get started, but the truth is that this section of your business plan is absolutely essential to understand.
Even if you end up outsourcing your bookkeeping and regular financial analysis to an accounting firm, you—the business owner—should be able to read and understand these documents and make decisions based on what you learn from them. Using a business dashboard tool like LivePlan can help simplify this process, so you’re not wading through spreadsheets to input and alter every single detail.
If you create and present financial statements that all work together to tell the story of your business, and if you can answer questions about where your numbers are coming from, your chances of securing funding from investors or lenders are much higher.
Additional small business financial resources
Ready to develop your own financial plan? Check out the following resources for more insights into creating an effective financial plan for your small business.
- Balance Sheet Template [Free Download]
- Profit and Loss Template [Free Download]
- How to Do a Sales Forecast
- How to Build a Profit and Loss Statement (Income Statement)
- How to Forecast Cash Flow
- Building Your Balance Sheet
- The Difference Between Cash and Profits

Trevor Betenson
Trevor is the CFO of Palo Alto Software, where he is responsible for leading the company’s accounting and finance efforts.
Starting or Growing a Business? Check out these Offerings.

Business Plan Writers
Investor-Ready Business Plans Written In No Time
100% Free Quote

Business Tools
Exclusive Offers on Must-Haves for New and Growing Businesses
$100+ in savings

Full Business Plan in Half the Time— and Double the Impact
Save 25% Annually

Management Dashboards
All the Insights You Need to Help Your Business Succeed
Works with QBO & XERO

Plan, fund, and grow.
Easily write a business plan, secure funding, and gain insights.
Achieve your business funding goals with a proven plan format.


Business Plan Financial Projections
- November 3, 2022

Financial projections are an important part of your business plan. The projections give investors and lenders an idea of how well your business is likely to do in the future. Financial projections include both income statements and balance sheets.
Financial projections are important for a number of reasons. First, they give investors and lenders an idea of how well your business is likely to do in the future. This can help you secure the funding you need to get your business off the ground. Financial projections also help you track your progress over time. You can use them to make sure your business is on track to meet its goals. Finally, financial projections can help you spot potential problems early on, so you can take corrective action.
What Are Business Plan Financial Projections?
Financial projections are an estimate of your company’s future financial performance through financial forecasting. They are typically used by businesses to secure funding, but can also be useful for internal decision-making and planning purposes.
Necessary Financial Statements
There are three main financial statements that you will need to include in your business plan financial projections:
Income Statement Projection
The income statement projection is a forecast of your company’s future revenues and expenses. It should include line items for each type of income and expense, as well as a total at the end.
There are a few key items you will need to include in your projection:
- Revenue: Your revenue projection should break down your expected sales by product or service, as well as by month. It is important to be realistic in your projections, so make sure to account for any seasonal variations in your business.
- Expenses: Your expense projection should include a breakdown of your expected costs by category, such as marketing, salaries, and rent. Again, it is important to be realistic in your estimates.
- Net Income: The net income projection is the difference between your revenue and expenses. This number tells you how much profit your company is expected to make.
Sample Income Statement
for the period ending December 31, 20XX
Product A Sales $10,000
Product B Sales $15,000
Total Revenue $25,000
Cost of Goods Sold $6,000
Salaries and Wages $8,000
Rent $1,500
Marketing and Advertising $2,500
Total Expenses $20,000
Net Income $5,000
Cash Flow Statement & Projection
The cash flow statement and projection are a forecast of your company’s future cash inflows and outflows. It is important to include a cash flow projection in your business plan, as it will give investors and lenders an idea of your company’s ability to generate cash.
There are a few key items you will need to include in your cash flow projection:
- The cash flow statement shows a breakdown of your expected cash inflows and outflows by month. It is important to be realistic in your projections, so make sure to account for any seasonal variations in your business.
- Cash inflows should include items such as sales revenue, interest income, and capital gains. Cash outflows should include items such as salaries, rent, and marketing expenses.
- It is important to track your company’s cash flow over time to ensure that it is healthy. A healthy cash flow is necessary for a successful business.
Sample Cash Flow Statements
ABC Company Cash Flow Projection
for the Year Ended December 31, 20XX
Cash flows from operating activities:
Cash receipts from customers $ 1,000,000
Cash payments to suppliers and employees $ 600,000
Interest and taxes paid $ 50,000
Net cash provided by operating activities $ 350,000
Cash flows from investing activities:
Purchase of equipment $ 200,000
Sale of investments $ 10,000
Net cash used in investing activities $ 190,000
Cash flows from financing activities:
Proceeds from issuance of debt $ 1,000,000
Repayment of debt $ 50,000
Proceeds from issuance of equity $ 10,000
Net cash provided by financing activities $ 1,060,000
Net increase in cash and cash equivalents $ 1,220,000
Balance Sheet Projection
The balance sheet projection is a forecast of your company’s future financial position. It should include line items for each type of asset and liability, as well as a total at the end.
A projection should include a breakdown of your company’s assets and liabilities by category. It is important to be realistic in your projections, so make sure to account for any seasonal variations in your business.
It is important to track your company’s financial position over time to ensure that it is healthy. A healthy balance is necessary for a successful business.
Sample Balance Sheet
ABC Company Balance Sheet Projection
as of December 31, 20XX
Cash and cash equivalents $ 500,000
Accounts receivable $ 200,000
Inventory $ 100,000
Prepaid expenses $ 50,000
Total assets $ 850,000
Liabilities and equity:
Accounts payable $ 300,000
Short-term debt $ 1,000,000
Long-term debt $ 50,000
Total liabilities $ 1,350,000
Common stock $ 100,000
Retained earnings $ (600,000)
Total equity $ (500,000)
Total liabilities and equity $ 850,000
How to Create Financial Projections
Creating financial projections for your business plan can be a daunting task, but it’s important to put together accurate and realistic financial projections in order to give your business the best chance for success.
Cost assumptions
When you create financial projections, it is important to be realistic about the costs your business will incur, using historical financial data can help with this. You will need to make assumptions about the cost of goods sold, operational costs, and capital expenditures.
It is important to track your company’s expenses over time to ensure that it is staying within its budget. A healthy bottom line is necessary for a successful business.
Capital Expenditures, Funding, Tax, and Balance Sheet Items
You will also need to make assumptions about capital expenditures, funding, tax, and balance sheet items. These assumptions will help you to create a realistic financial picture of your business.
Capital Expenditures
When projecting your company’s capital expenditures, you will need to make a number of assumptions about the type of equipment or property your business will purchase. You will also need to estimate the cost of the purchase.
It is important to track your company’s capital expenditures over time to ensure that it is staying within its budget. A healthy bottom line is necessary for a successful business.
When projecting your company’s funding needs, you will need to make a number of assumptions about where the money will come from. This might include assumptions about bank loans, venture capital, or angel investors.
It is important to track your company’s funding sources over time to ensure that it has a healthy mix of financing options. A healthy balance is necessary for a successful business.
When projecting your company’s tax liability, you will need to make a number of assumptions about the tax rates that will apply to your business. You will also need to estimate the amount of taxes your company will owe.
It is important to track your company’s tax liability over time to ensure that it is staying within its budget. A healthy bottom line is necessary for a successful business.
Balance Sheet Items
When projecting your company’s balance, you will need to make a number of assumptions about the type and amount of debt your business will have. You will also need to estimate the value of your company’s assets and liabilities.
It is important to track your company’s debt levels and asset values over time to ensure that they are in line with your projections.
Financial Projection Scenarios
Write two financial scenarios when creating your financial projections, a best-case scenario, and a worst-case scenario. Use your list of assumptions to come up with realistic numbers for each scenario.
Presuming that you have already generated a list of assumptions, the creation of best and worst-case scenarios should be relatively simple. For each assumption, generate a high and low estimate. For example, if you are assuming that your company will have $100,000 in revenue, your high estimate might be $120,000 and your low estimate might be $80,000.
Once you have generated high and low estimates for all of your assumptions, you can create two scenarios: a best case scenario and a worst-case scenario. Simply plug the high estimates into your financial projections for the best-case scenario and the low estimates into your financial projections for the worst-case scenario.
Conduct a ratio analysis
A ratio analysis is a useful tool that can be used to evaluate a company’s financial health. Ratios can be used to compare a company’s performance to its industry average or to its own historical performance.
There are a number of different ratios that can be used in ratio analysis. Some of the more popular ones include the following:
- Gross margin ratio
- Operating margin ratio
- Return on assets (ROA)
- Return on equity (ROE)
To conduct a ratio analysis, you will need financial statements for your company and for its competitors. You will also need industry average ratios. These can be found in industry reports or on financial websites.
Once you have the necessary information, you can calculate the ratios for your company and compare them to the industry averages or to your own historical performance. If your company’s ratios are significantly different from the industry averages, it might be indicative of a problem.
Be Realistic
When creating your financial projections, it is important to be realistic. Your projections should be based on your list of assumptions and should reflect your best estimate of what your company’s future financial performance will be. This includes projected operating income, a projected income statement, and a profit and loss statement.
Your goal should be to create a realistic set of financial projections that can be used to guide your company’s future decision-making.
Sales Forecast
One of the most important aspects of your financial projections is your sales forecast. Your sales forecast should be based on your list of assumptions and should reflect your best estimate of what your company’s future sales will be.
Your sales forecast should be realistic and achievable. Do not try to “game” the system by creating an overly optimistic or pessimistic forecast. Your goal should be to create a realistic sales forecast that can be used to guide your company’s future decision-making.
Creating a sales forecast is not an exact science, but there are a number of methods that can be used to generate realistic estimates. Some common methods include market analysis, competitor analysis, and customer surveys.
Create multi-year financial projections
When creating financial projections, it is important to generate projections for multiple years. This will give you a better sense of how your company’s financial performance is likely to change over time.
It is also important to remember that your financial projections are just that: projections. They are based on a number of assumptions and are not guaranteed to be accurate. As such, you should review and update your projections on a regular basis to ensure that they remain relevant.
Creating financial projections is an important part of any business plan. However, it’s important to remember that these projections are just estimates. They are not guarantees of future success.
Business Plan Financial Projections FAQs
What is a business plan financial projection.
A business plan financial projection is a forecast of your company's future financial performance. It should include line items for each type of asset and liability, as well as a total at the end.
What are annual income statements?
The Annual income statement is a financial document and a financial model that summarize a company's revenues and expenses over the course of a fiscal year. They provide a snapshot of a company's financial health and performance and can be used to track trends and make comparisons with other businesses.
What are the necessary financial statements?
The necessary financial statements for a business plan are an income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet.
How do I create financial projections?
You can create financial projections by making a list of assumptions, creating two scenarios (best case and worst case), conducting a ratio analysis, and being realistic.
Recent Posts

How to Start A Car Rental Business

How to Start A Staffing Agency

Business Plan Outline and Example
© 2023 PlanBuildr.com

IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Preparing a financial plan for your business is important if you plan to pursue business finance options such as loans, according to Inc. Business finance companies look at the short-term viability as well as the long-term potential of a bu...
Financial security is one of the most common life goals around the world. It’s the reason why people save, scrimp and budget their money. But sometimes, they fall behind on their efforts.
Financial planning means putting your incomes and expenses on a scale to achieve monetary equilibrium or upward mobility on your income levels. Your plan should capture how your current and future risks are covered to protect you from econo...
1. Project your spending and sales · 2. Create financial projections · 3. Determine your financial needs · 4. Use the projections for planning · 5. Plan for
Spell out your financial forecast in dollars and sense · Sales Forecast · Expenses Budget · Cash Flow Statement · Profit and Loss Statement · Balance
How to Create a Financial Forecast for a Startup Business Plan · Start with a sales forecast · Create an expenses budget · Subscribe to our
How to create financial projections for your small business · Step 1: Create a sales projection · Step 2: Create an expense projection · Step 3:
Create a List of Assumptions · Cost Assumptions · Assumptions related to Capital Expenditures, Funding, Tax, and Balance Sheet Items · Create Two Scenarios.
Financial projections use existing or estimated financial data to forecast your business's future income and expenses. They often include different
Financial projections, both as part of an initial business plan and as part of ongoing business planning, use a company's financial statements to help business
A financial plan is simply an overview of your current business financials and projections for growth. Think of any documents that represent your current
The balance sheet projection is a forecast of your company's future financial position. It should include line items for each type of asset and liability, as
This financial projections and financial modeling for business plans help video is for small business owners or potential small business