Business calculations without hassle. How to quickly draw up a financial plan for a business project. Financial plan: Detailed calculation of a business plan with examples Approximate calculation of a business plan

  • 18.06.2022

It is hard to imagine a business plan for which you would not have to create calculations. Certain calculations require all parts of the business plan: marketing, operational, production.

But the most important in terms of calculations is the financial part of the business plan. It is she who allows you to identify how profitable and sustainable the business will be created.

The financial part should answer the following questions:

  • How much money will you need to start a business?
  • How much profit will it bring?
  • How soon will the business pay off?
  • How sustainable and profitable will it be?

Each of these questions is answered by one of the parts of the business plan. This means that in the structure of the financial part of the business plan there will be such sections as investment costs, profit and loss forecast, cash flow and project efficiency assessment.

Investment costs

The first thing to do when writing a business plan is to calculate in detail how much it will cost to create a business. This will allow the entrepreneur himself to understand how much money is needed to start a business and whether it is necessary to attract loans.

In this part of the business plan, you need to take into account all the items of expenses associated with starting a business. For clarity, it is worth referring to an example. Consider a business plan for the construction of a car wash for two posts. You will have to invest both in the construction itself and in the purchase of equipment. In general, the list of investment costs for this business will look like this:

  • Design work
  • Procurement of building materials and construction works
  • Connection to electricity, water supply and other engineering networks
  • Purchase of equipment
  • Installation of equipment

According to Aidar Ismagilov, the owner of the Moidodyr car wash network in Kazan, the construction of a car wash will cost 30-35 thousand rubles per square meter, taking into account design work and communications. As a result, the amount turns out to be quite solid, so now renting is more popular among novice businessmen, rather than turnkey construction. In this case, the investment plan will include both rent payments before opening a business and renovation of the premises.

Equipment costs will depend on the type of sink. If the car wash is of a manual type, then it will be enough to lay 400 thousand rubles for equipment. But for an automatic car wash, the costs will be at least 300 thousand euros.

For calculations, it is better to take a certain average price for each of the cost items. For example, if you need to calculate the cost of renting real estate, you should take into account not the highest and not the lowest price per square meter, but the average price on the market. You can determine it by examining the rental offers in your city.

Another thing is if the supplier and his price are already known in advance. For example, a car wash requires only equipment from a strictly defined manufacturer. Then in the calculations you need to include exactly the prices that he offers.

Knowing the required amount of investment will allow not only to estimate how much money will be needed to start a business, but also how quickly it will pay off.

Profit and Loss Forecast

If you subtract the amount of business expenses from the amount of business income, you can find out what is the net profit. This indicator is much better than income, shows what the state of the business is and how much you need to invest in its further development.

At the beginning of a business, expenses often exceed income, and instead of net profit, there is a net loss. In the first months or even a year of work, this is a normal situation. You should not be afraid of it: the main thing is that the loss is reduced every month.

When making a profit and loss forecast, all indicators should be calculated monthly until the business pays off. At the same time, you should not make the forecast too optimistic: imagine that the income will not be the maximum possible, take the average figures.

Cash Flow

For a business that is still at the start-up stage, it is important to understand not only what its net profit will be. One of the most important indicators is the so-called cash flow or cash flow. By calculating the cash flow, you can determine what the financial condition of the business is and how effective the investment in it is.

Cash flow is calculated as the difference between cash inflows and outflows over a given period. If we return to the car wash example, then in order to calculate the cash flow in the first month of its operation, it is necessary to take net profit for receipts, and the amount of initial investment for outflows.

In this case, it will be more convenient to calculate if the outflows are designated as a negative number. That is, we add a minus sign to the amount of initial investment in a car wash, and add the net profit in the first month of work to the resulting number.

To calculate the cash flow in the second month, you need to find the difference between the result of the first month and the net profit received in the second month. Since the first month turned out to be a negative number, the net profit must be added to it again. The cash flow in all subsequent months is calculated according to the same scheme.

Project efficiency assessment

Having predicted profits and losses, as well as the cash flow of a business, it is necessary to move on to one of the most important sections - evaluating its effectiveness. There are many criteria by which the effectiveness of the project is evaluated. But for a small business, it is enough to evaluate only three of them: profitability, break-even point and payback period.

Profitability business - one of the most important indicators. In general, in the economy there are many different indicators of profitability - return on equity, return on assets, return on investment. All of them allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of a business in its various aspects.

To understand exactly which profitability indicators should be calculated in your business plan, you need to refer to the requirements of an investor or a credit institution. If the goal is to evaluate the profitability of the business "for yourself", it will be enough to calculate the overall profitability of the business.

Make it simple. It is enough to divide the profit of the business by the amount of its income, and then multiply the resulting number by 100 to get the result as a percentage.

It is difficult to name the optimal indicator of business profitability. It largely depends on the size of the business, the type of activity of the company. For micro-businesses with revenues up to 10 million rubles, a profitability indicator of 15 - 25% is considered good. The larger the business, the lower the percentage received can be. In the case of a car wash, the normal rate of return is from 10 to 30%, says Aidar Ismagilov.

Another indicator that needs to be calculated is break even. It allows you to determine at what income the company will fully cover its costs, but so far will not make a profit. You need to know this in order to understand how strong the business is financially. To find the break-even point, you first need to multiply the business income by its fixed costs, then subtract the variable costs from the income, and then divide the first number obtained by the second.

Fixed costs are those that do not depend on the volume of goods produced or services rendered. Businesses incur such expenses even when they are idle. In the case of a car wash, these costs include salaries for accountants and administrators, utilities and communications, depreciation, loan payments, property taxes, and so on.

Variable costs are anything that changes with the volume of production. For example, at a car wash, the costs that change with an increase or decrease in the number of washed cars are the cost of auto chemicals, water consumption, and piecework wages.

Having received a certain number as a result of the calculations, you can correlate it with the income statement. In the month when the business income reaches or exceeds the amount obtained as a result of calculating the break-even point, it will be reached.

Most often, the break-even point is not reached in the first month of the business, especially if it is related to production. According to Aidar Ismagilov, in the case of a car wash, reaching the break-even point depends on the season. If the car wash opened during the dry summer season, when there is little demand for services, they will be unprofitable throughout that season. If the opening took place during the season of high demand, then you can reach the break-even point in the first month.

Payback period business is one of the most important indicators not only for the entrepreneur himself, but also for his potential investors. For example, if the payback period for a business is too long, then it becomes much more difficult to get a loan for it from a bank.

The easiest way to calculate the payback period is if the cash flow has already been calculated. In this case, you need to find the month in which, after adding a positive number of net income with a negative number of initial investments, you get a positive number. This will mean that the profit from the business fully covered the initial investment in it.

It is for this reason that it is necessary to calculate cash flow, as well as profits and losses, at least until the payback period is reached. The payback period of investments largely depends on the amount of investment costs. In the case of a car wash, the minimum period is 3 years.

Here are the main indicators that will need to be calculated in a business plan at the start of any business. Of course, this is far from an axiom, and depending on the requirements of investors, the state of the enterprise, its type of activity and other features, additional calculations may be required. Most of them you can do on your own.

the financial section is responsible for providing summary monetary information. In general, all business plans can be written according to different methods and according to different requirements. Their format will largely depend on the goals of the project, its scope and main characteristics. The same differences may be present in the financial sections of such plans, however, as a rule, the process of writing this chapter can be divided into several main stages, namely:

  1. Settlement standards;
  2. General production expenses;
  3. Cost estimate and calculation of the cost of goods or services;
  4. Report on the main financial flows;
  5. Report about incomes and material losses;
  6. Estimated financial balance of the project;
  7. Analysis of the main financial indicators;
  8. Description of the method (methods) of financing.

Business plan financial plan structure

1. Calculation standards

In this paragraph, the following points should be defined and described:

  • Prices that will be indicated in the business plan (permanent, current, with or without taxes);
  • The taxation system, the amount of the tax, the timing of its payment;
  • The terms covered by the business plan (planning horizon). As a rule, this period is about three years: the first year is described in more detail, divided into monthly periods, while the following years are divided into quarters.
  • Indication of the current inflation rate, inflation data for the last few years. Accounting for this factor regarding prices for consumables, raw materials, etc. - everything that will need to be purchased for the implementation of the described project.

2. General production costs.

The data on salaries correlate with the information previously presented in the organizational and production plans.

Variable, situational costs depend on the characteristics of production, goods, services. Various factors can be taken into account here, for example, seasonality. Correct calculations of variable costs can only be made by analyzing the volume of output of goods or services and approximate levels of sales.

Fixed, recurring expenses depend on a single variable - time. These costs include business management, marketing, facility maintenance, equipment maintenance, etc.

3. Cost estimate and calculation of the cost of goods or services

The cost estimate (investment costs) is, in fact, a list of expenses that will need to be incurred in order to implement the project outlined in the business plan. This item should be described in as much detail as possible, as it allows you to determine the financial viability and efficiency of investments.

If a business project involves the production of certain products, the costs of organizing and implementing it should be covered with the help of initial working capital, which are also part of the investment costs.

The sources of such funds can be investments and, for example, credit funds.

The cost of production is calculated based on information about costs, salaries, overheads, etc. It also needs to take into account total production volumes and sales levels for a specific period of time (for example, a month or a year).

4. Report on the main financial flows

This item includes a description of all cash flows. Undoubtedly, this report is one of the main parts of the financial plan, as it is intended to show that the project will be financially secure at any stage of its activity and that there will be no cash gaps during the project.

5. Profit and loss statement

In this paragraph, a financial assessment of the activities of the enterprise is carried out, its income, expenses, profits and losses are described.

6. Financial balance of the project

To write this section, it is necessary to make a balance forecast based on all previous calculations or existing reports (if the enterprise is already operating). This forecast is also divided into months, the first year, quarters of subsequent years and the third year of operations.

7. Analysis of financial indicators of the project

After you draw up a balance sheet, you can analyze the main financial indicators. Such an analysis is done for the entire period of implementation of the plan, after which the financial characteristics of the project are summed up: its sustainability, solvency, profitability, payback period, present value of the project.

9. Descriptions of financing methods

In this paragraph, it is necessary to describe on what funds the project will be implemented. There are several types of financing, namely equity, leasing and debt. The sponsor can be the state in the form of subsidies or loans or private investors, and this must be indicated in the financial section of the business plan.

In the same paragraph, you need to describe the process of borrowing and repaying borrowed money, indicating sources, amounts, interest rates and a debt repayment schedule.

It should be emphasized that the financial plan is the most important and complex part of the business plan. Any mistake made can result in a refusal of funding, which means that it is better to entrust its compilation to a competent person. However, if your project is simple and does not involve, for example, the production of large batches of goods and their further sale, you can compose it yourself.

Brief briefing

You have an idea. You want to create your own business. Excellent. What's next? Next, you need to “sort everything out”, think through the details (as far as possible), in order to first of all understand: is it worth developing this project? Perhaps after researching the market, you will realize that the service or product is not in demand, or you do not have sufficient funds to develop your business. Maybe the project should be improved a little, to abandon unnecessary elements, or, on the contrary, to introduce something?

A business plan will help you consider the prospects of your venture.

End justifies the means?

Starting to write a business plan, remember its goals and functions. First of all, you carry out preparatory work in order to understand how realistic the achievement of the planned results is, how much time and money are needed to implement the plan.

In addition, a business plan is necessary to attract investors, receive a grant or a bank loan. That is, it should include information about the potential profit of the project, the necessary costs and the payback period. Think about what is important and interesting for your recipients to hear.

Use a little cheat sheet for yourself:

  • Analyze the market you are going to enter. What leaders-companies exist in this direction. Study their experience and work.
  • Determine the strengths and weaknesses of your project, future opportunities and risks. In short, do a SWOT analysis*.

SWOT analysis - (English)strengths,Weaknesses,Opportunities,Threats - strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A method of planning, developing a strategy that allows you to identify the main factors influencing business development.

  • Be clear about what you expect from the project. Set a specific goal.

The main goal of the business plan is to help, first of all, you yourself in developing the company's strategy and planning its development, as well as assistance in attracting investments.

So every plan has a structure. Regardless of the specifics of the project and the requirements of investors, a business plan, as a rule, contains the following elements:

1. Firm CV(short business plan)

  • Product description
  • Description of the market situation
  • Competitive advantages and disadvantages
  • Brief description of the organizational structure
  • Distribution of funds (investment and own)

2. marketing plan

  • Definition of a “problem” and your solution
  • Definition of the target audience
  • Market and competition analysis
  • Free niche, unique selling proposition
  • Methods and cost of attracting customers
  • Sales channels
  • Stages and terms of market conquest

3. Plan for the production of goods or services

  • Organization of production
  • Infrastructure features
  • Production resources and areas
  • Production equipment
  • Production process
  • Quality control
  • Calculation of investments and depreciation

4.Workflow organization

  • Organizational structure of the enterprise
  • Distribution of powers and responsibilities
  • Control system

5. Financial plan and risk forecast

  • Cost estimate
  • Calculation of the cost of a product or service
  • Calculation of profit and loss
  • Investment period
  • Break even point and payback point
  • Cash flow forecast
  • Risk Forecast
  • Ways to minimize risks

It is clear that a business plan is one whole and its parts are inextricably linked with each other. However, a well-designed structure will help you not to forget the important, as well as to look deeper into each of the aspects.

Company resume. Briefly about the main

Marketing plan. There are empty seats?

When drawing up a marketing plan, you will have to analyze the market you are going to enter. Thus, you will identify trends for yourself, collect information about competitors and get to know your consumer, your target audience better.

After evaluating a potential client, his interests and preferences, you must determine the optimal location of the office, outlet, etc. It should be comfortable. Calculate the required number of customers for your business to pay off and compare with the audience living or working around the intended location of the business. For example, for a public service business, this audience should not be less than 2% of the number of people living within a short walk or five-minute drive.

It is possible that the market that you were going to conquer is oversaturated at the moment. Analyze the actions of competitors, create your strategy, focus on your uniqueness, bring something new to fill an empty niche in a certain area.

Of course, creating something that is not yet on the market is quite difficult. However, you can carefully analyze the situation and open, for example, a point where the consumer really needs it or play on the difference in prices and the level of services provided relative to nearby competitors.

Also, you will definitely have to decide on the sales channels. After reviewing the existing methods on the market - find the best for yourself. Calculate how much it costs you to acquire each client.

Finally, when deciding on pricing, you will need to calculate: which is more profitable? A high price with a small number of sales or a price lower than competitors, but a large client flow. We should also not forget about the service, because for many consumers it is crucial. They are willing to pay a price above the market average, but receive a high quality of service.

Production plan. What are we selling?

Here you will finally tell in detail about the essence of your business: what do you do?

For example, you decide to produce dresses and sell them. In the production plan, indicate the suppliers of fabric and equipment, where you will place the sewing workshop, what will be the volume of production. You will write down the stages of manufacturing products, the necessary qualifications of employees, calculate the necessary deductions to the depreciation fund, as well as logistics. From many factors: from the cost of threads to the cost of labor, the costs of the future business will also depend.

Prescribing the technology for creating your course product, you will pay attention to many little things that you have not thought about before. There may be issues with the storage of goods or difficulties with imported raw materials, problems with finding employees with the necessary qualifications, etc.

When you have finally written down the entire path of creating a product or service, it's time to calculate how much your project will cost you. It may well be that later, when making financial calculations, you will realize that you need to make adjustments to the production plan: cut some costs or radically change the technology itself.

Organization of the workflow. How will it work?

Will you manage the business alone or with partners? How will decisions be made? These and many more questions you need to answer in the "Organization of the workflow" section.

Here you can register the entire structure of the enterprise and identify duplication of authority, mutual exclusion, etc. Having seen the whole organization scheme, it will be easier for you to optimally distribute rights and responsibilities between departments and employees.

Having understood, first of all, for yourself how your company functions, it will be possible to more effectively develop a system of interaction between structures, a system for monitoring employees and the entire personnel policy.

The importance of this section is that it describes who and how will implement the project in reality.

Financial plan. Main section

The financial section is directly related to all points of the business plan. Therefore, if changes or additions are made to one of the sections, then the financial calculations also change. The reverse process is also possible, if adjustments are made to the financial plan - this means changes in other structures. So, if you understand that you will have to cut costs in order to keep within the amount of funds that you have, consider how you will carry out this optimization.

Of course, a business plan is an approximate model of how your project will develop and function. You need to remember that unforeseen situations will also arise, because you start a business in real time, and life is impossible without surprises. However, if you follow the recommendations from BIBOSS, you will be able to draw up a detailed and working business plan that will allow you to avoid many problems.

When you are working on creating a business plan, you must determine the main financial indicators of the project. All of them follow from serious calculations based on taking into account all the necessary costs and implementation forecasts. Economics is a relentless science, so all calculations will lead you to an accurate understanding of how much you can afford to spend and how much you can earn.

I will try not to stretch all the calculation rules for a long time when drawing up a business plan and determine the main, most necessary data for the calculation. The calculations are based on such a naive and so beloved by students of economics break-even point. In fact, it divides the entire field into your gains and losses. The conditions under which it is obtained will be your minimum requirements for the project. To begin with, you should take into account absolutely all your opening costs. Here should be taken into account:

  • expenses for registration of a legal entity
  • purchase of premises
  • repair and arrangement
  • purchase of equipment and materials
  • buying technology or authorship
  • expenses associated with permits and licenses

Next, we define all our subsequent expenses in two categories, fixed and variable costs. List fixed costs, which does not depend on the number of services provided, includes the following items:

  • space rental costs
  • salary (for employees who do not work on a piecework system)
  • energy supply, water supply, heating
  • connection
  • equipment depreciation and maintenance
  • taxes
  • safety

Now let's make a list variable costs. Here we include the costs associated with the performance of the service, those that are directly included in the price:

  • material costs
  • salary (employees working on a piecework system)
  • electricity (if consumption depends on the number of goods or services)
  • logistics (delivery costs)
  • connection

Basically, most types of businesses include wages and materials as variable costs, but it all depends solely on the type of goods produced or services provided. Think carefully about what expenses will accompany you during each operation, and include them in your business plan. Now let's think about income. As you may have guessed, determining the income from a single operation (whether it be a product or a service) is easy, you just need to subtract the variable costs of providing them from the price. The problem is that the assortment does not allow us to determine a clear understanding of the profitability indicator, since all your services and goods are different and cost differently. One way to address this issue lies in average figures. In a restaurant and a car wash, this will be the value of the average check. In production and in the store it is easier, everything is calculated according to the desired level of profitability. It is better to carry out calculations in electronic form and build them interconnectedly in order to be able to obtain ready-made results with each change in the initial data. And they will change in order to understand how the payback period or business profitability will change when prices or the number of customers change. If you, when drawing up a business plan, you acted in accordance with my advice, then you can just as easily draw up a similar schedule:

So, the graph shows the monetary value vertically of the amount of goods produced or services provided. We see lines on the graph permanent and variable costs(dotted line). The constants remain the same, regardless of the flow of customers, while the variables, on the contrary, are multiples of it and start from zero. Red shows the sum of both types of costs. That allows you to reflect the total costs of the organization at different workload points. Now, where the green line representing income crosses the red one, we get the break-even point. Namely, the same amount of goods and services necessary for the company to have an income. Let's move on to the next chart:

We remove all unnecessary and, for clarity, shade the zones of profitability and unprofitability. Now everything is clear, lowering the line down, we get the very minimum amount needed to make money. For ease of understanding, let's rotate the resulting graph. Red indicates the loss zone, green - the income zone.

From the above graph, it becomes clear that the resulting break-even point is certainly important. But it is by no means a target. To get it, we must predict the payback of the business for a certain period. Let's say you are going to pay back your business in a year, then you should divide your opening costs by 12 months, and you will get the very necessary level (it is assumed that the graphs are given in the period of the month). Let's draw this line with a broken line and get the following:

It turns out that in order to achieve your payback goals, you must look at the intersection of other lines. Thus, the very necessary level of your consumption of your goods and services, which will ensure all your goals, is marked with a red cross. You can define a target point at which the payback of the business will fit within a certain timeframe, or based on specific expectations and market research, calculate the payback period. Further, the matter remains with the calculations at the point or range you defined. Be sure to calculate and provide data for any question that arises. First of all it will net profit. In the calculation for a specific point, you can easily calculate it as the difference between profit and the sum of fixed and variable costs. The amount received will reflect your income and will also allow you to determine the profitability and payback period. Profitability is calculated as the ratio of the final cost of your goods and services (for example, per month) to the sum of the costs of their production / provision (the sum of variable and fixed costs). Payback period is calculated as the ratio of the costs necessary to open to the net profit. Of course, financial calculations in a serious business plan involve more scrupulous work with numbers. Possible sources of attracting investments are taken into account, all main indicators are correlated depending on interest rates on loans and repayment schedules. If you do not resort to all the subtleties, we examined the main indicators of the financial calculation of the business plan. I hope this helps in your activity.