Financial Plan Template
More than just a financial plan template, with Hola Business your financial plan template is populated as you learn about business.
Why does your business need a financial plan template?
When considering business plans, investors and potential lenders focus mainly on the financial aspect. This should give you an indication of just how important a role your financial plan plays within your overall business plan.
A financial plan template will allow you to accurately plan and manage your monthly income and expenses to make sure you’re on top of your business finances.
The financial plan template:
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is the easiest and quickest way of generating a financial plan
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assists in achieving the business deliverables
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is used to help secure business funding or 3rd party investment
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provides a framework to ensure you remain within budget
This article will explore the following:
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Parts of a financial plan template
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Tips for creating your financial plan template
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Financial projections template
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How can Hola Business help you?
Hola Business offers a unique tool tailored for start-up businesses looking to build their financial plans: build your financial and business plans while learning all the essential knowledge you’ll need to succeed. You also get to test the business skills you’ve acquired through a simulated business. Can you think of a better way to complete a financial plan template that will turn into your real financial plan? We can’t.
Develop your financial plan accurately, easily and without fuss while learning how to start a business. Sign up to Hola Business today.
What are the parts of a financial plan template?
Creating a template of your financial plan – or a business financial plan example – that can be updated as your business grows is one of the best things you can do as you start out in your new venture.
Creating a financial plan template of your own is challenging, especially so if you have little or no experience in this regard. There are a host of templates for financial plans that can be found online. Unfortunately, none of these are tailored to help you with your specific business or business idea.
Enter Hola Business. Our easy-to-use interactive financial plan template is nothing like all the others you will find online. We don't just dump a spreadsheet in your inbox, rather, we will teach you the essential skills needed to develop your financial plan template. Learn as you capture your information: once complete, it will result in a tailored financial plan for your specific business requirements.
Additionally, by choosing Hola Business you take the guesswork out of your financial plan. Both your financial plan and business plan are automatically populated as you complete each module in our 12-module interactive, in-depth course.
Get the unique business starter pack tailored for South Africans by South Africans – including a financial plan unique to your business.
The important parts of your financial plan:
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Expenses
There are 2 categories in business expenses: start-up and operating expenses.
Everything you spend to launch your business are start-up expenses. They might include:
- business registration fees and business licence fees
- all stock required to begin your business
- office rental deposits
- deposits for equipment you need to run your business
- deposits for municipal utility services
These are only a few of the primary expenses you may require when starting your business. As you develop a financial plan template specific to your business, you can add the other start-up expenses, pertinent to your business offering.
Then there are operating expenses. Operating expenses are those expenses in your financial plan template that are regular expenses and needed to keep your business operating.
Examples of operating expenses include:
- salaries
- rent or bond repayments
- telecommunications
- raw materials if you use them
- electricity, water, rates & taxes
- storage costs if you make use of offsite storage
- monthly distribution costs
- loan repayments
- business supplies
- maintenance costs
The important part is ensuring that all your start-up costs and operating expenses are listed in your financial plan – and the list can be added to as-and-when required.
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Income Statement
The Income Statement forecast is one of the three major financial statements that must be included in your financial plan template. It will include business expenses, income and profit for a specified period. It should demonstrate the expected profitability of the business and needs to be as realistic as possible.
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Cash Flow
Cash flow projections indicate your businesses expected financial inflows and outflows. This is an essential tool as it shows if/when your cash outflow is too high compared to your cash inflow. It will in turn, reflect whether you should secure some kind of investment or loan (for the short term) to supplement your cash flow. This Cash Flow forecast also reflects the total amount of capital needed for your business.
As cash flow projections indicate the approximate amount of money that will be generated and spent by your business over a specified timeframe, they allow potential investors to decide if your proposed business is a low risk in terms of credit. This information is also essential when approaching institutional lenders, as the ability to generate sufficient future cash flows is critical for them to decide if your business is a good candidate for credit, a short-term loan, or a long-term investment.
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Balance Sheet
The Balance Sheet is a summary of the financial data pertaining to Assets, Liabilities and Shareholders Equity, and reflects your business’ net worth at any given time. The Hola Business financial plan and training modules will help you to develop accurate information around these Balance Sheet items:
- Assets: these are any tangible objects of financial value that are owned by the business.
- Liabilities: these are debts owed to creditors by the business.
- Shareholders Equity: the money invested by the owners of the business as well as any profits re-invested into the business. Can also be calculated by subtracting the total liabilities from the total assets.
Easy access! Hola Business is an online platform available on your smart phone, tablet or computer. Find out more.
Tips for creating your financial plan template
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Set-up costs
Research and compile a list of everything required to set up your business. This gives you an indication of required upfront costs and whether or not additional funding may be required. -
Profit & loss forecasts
Estimate all your business’ expenses and sales on a monthly and annual basis. You will then be in a position to better determine whether you might make a profit or experience a loss over each of these periods. Forecasting should be used to help you arrive at realistic sales targets and possible profit margins, as well as help with your pricing.
Good forecasting requires good research and a great place to start should be with competitors’ performance. However, don’t limit it to competitors only, include other businesses operating in the same industry. The information about your competitors and other industry businesses can be sourced from industry analyses and benchmarks, as well as market research. -
Cash flow projections
Cash is king! Especially when analysing a financial plan. Cash flow projections help you determine whether you have sufficient cash or if more is required. The reason this is necessary is because the majority of businesses that deal in goods face the possibility of reduced or zero resources at some point in time. An example of how this may happen is giving credit (which is largely necessary in this age). This means that even if your business has a record month of sales, you may have to wait some time before receiving payment. This results in a gap in cash flow unless the entrepreneur or business owner has adequately catered for this possibility.Things to remember regarding cash flow projections:
- Be as realistic as possible. Remember that some customers may not pay on time.
- Take the necessary action to deal with your cash flow if you project a shortage.
Find out how Hola Business can help you get your business going.
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Forecast your Balance Sheet
Get a financial picture of your business by making a list of all the expected assets, liabilities, and equity of your business after the end of the first year. This will help you evaluate your business idea’s financial health. -
Determine your break-even point
Determining the break-even point helps determine the actual number of sales needed to cover all expenses. It is very useful for the analysis of costs, pricing, and sales values and any amount that exceeds your estimate is profit. -
Also consider
Even if you need to do a lot of research first, think of realistic values when making sales estimations.Test various scenarios by modifying the values of your costs, prices and sales, but remember to document the reasons behind the values. This makes your numbers more credible. Most lending institutions require this type information if you decide to apply for a loans.
With Hola Business, your financial plan will be ready to present to potential investors upon course completion.
Financial projections
One of the main challenges for new entrepreneurs in creating a financial plan is developing financial projections for a business that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately this means that financial projections are effectively educated guesses, however this doesn't mean that you should abandon completing the critically important finacial plan template.
Hola Business will help reduce the guesswork involved in creating your financial projections. Your financial plan is automatically generated as you complete the 12 module start-up business course. A detailed and accurate financial plan goes a long way in helping with the accuracy of the financial projections for your business.
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For new business owners (business start-ups) and entrepreneurs, financial projections will help you to plan a start-up budget and judge more or less when you should expect the business to become profitable.
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If you’re already in business, creating annual financial projections will aid you in setting goals and staying on track to achieve those goals.
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To convince lenders and investors of the business’ growth potential if you require external financing, both start-up ventures and existing businesses will need to disclose their financial projections. This is the case whether you seek a loan from a financial services institution or an investment from a private source.
Once your financial projections for a specified period are completed, always keep them handy, don’t put them somewhere and forget about the results. What you should do is regularly compare your financial projections with your authentic financial statements. This will enable you to ascertain if your business is meeting your expectations or not. If your projections have been overly optimistic or even pessimistic, you can then adjust them for better accuracy.
Ensure that you are 100% au fait with the assumptions behind your financial projections so that you can easily explain them to interested parties. You might consider including both a best- and worst-case scenario in your financial projections, so you have considered all possibilities.
Ensure you have everything covered in your business and financial plan. Sign up for Hola Business today.
How can Hola Business help you?
Hola Business is an online training programme designed to help you develop your complete Business Plan while learning some of the most important skills needed to become a successful entrepreneur. It's specifically tailored for the aspiring entrepreneur who wants to transform that business idea into a reality.
Our 12-module course helps you ensure that you have everything covered in both your financial plan and your business plan. Hola Business allows you to capture and build your own business and financial plans as you learn. This achieves a greater understanding of your plans and fosters a commitment to, and most importantly, a sense of ownership of your business and financial plans.
After all, the success of your business is dependant on the successful implementation of your plans, and we at Hola Business know that this can only be realistically achieved when your business and financial plans belong to you. You, the entrepreneur, need to be at the centre of this plan creation and our methodology of learning-by-doing will significantly aid you in the process of developing your plans.
At the end, you will have automatically created comprehensive and achievable business and financial plans, providing a roadmap to your business success.
The Hola Business modules are:
Personal Goals
When managing a business, you should put some focus onto yourself. Central to this will be the development of a Wheel of Life, as well as the setting of some personal goals, and action plans to achieve those goals.
Cycles of Your Business
Pre-start-up, development and growth phases. Learn about the early cycles of business, the challenges you’ll face in your business journey and how you can be prepared for the changes the business will go through.
From Idea to Plan
Take that business idea and interrogate it a little more. This module will create the overview of your business plan by defining your business, your market and competitors, as well as doing a SWOT analysis
Business Planning
Develop your Vision, Mission, SMART goals and action plans as you formulate your own Business Plan using a Balanced Scorecard, through an easy to understand step by step process of creating these key planning documents.
Intro to Financial Planning
A quick introduction to the importance of financial forecasting, introducing the three key documents that will make up the Financial Plan.
Understanding Costs
Gain a detailed understanding of the costs of starting and operating your business, your day-to-day costs, and how they impact on the business.
Pricing for Profit
A straightforward guide to setting prices, incorporating pricing strategy, costing principles, breakeven points & guidelines to profitable pricing.
Financial Scorecard
Gaining a clear understanding of the financial scorecards of the business are critical to the long-term health of your business. Be guided through the forecasting process, culminating in the development of your Income Statement forecast.
Managing Working Capital
Learn how to manage your working capital, and understand the flow of money through your business. Be guided through the development of your own Cash Flow and Balance Sheet forecasts, completing your Financial Plan.
Setting up Your Business
All a start-up needs to know about tax, compliance and admin. Take the frustration out of searching the internet to find out what you need to know about in setting up your business.
Getting Finance
Explore the ways you can look to get financing for your business. Examine both traditional and alternative funding options available to you, and what you need to know.
Marketing for Start-Ups
Understand business-appropriate marketing fundamentals and identify the ideal marketing channels for successful promoting of your business to your target audience.
Serious about starting your business?
Learn essential skills and knowledge while building your business plan through step-by-step online training with Hola Business.
Find out more