Help re Financial Projections

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Flyakite

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I am attempting to prepare financial projections for a brand new events management ltd company, as I want to apply for a small loan (10k max).

The last time I looked at a Profit and Loss account was in school, so my knowledge is rusty! I want to draw up P&L accounts, Cash flow projections and a "what if" alternative to see what impact lower sales and/or higher overhead would have on net profit (as per a post I saw elsewhere on AAB).

Can anyone advise whether more info is required? Also if anyone has any helpful tips on preparing the info (layout of P&L account, etc), it would be greatly appreciated.
 
You will most probably find it beneficial to complete a business plan for your new venture. You could get help from your local .

Your bank should also have start your own business packs and business plan templates that would be useful.
 
Perhaps my request was ambiguous - the rest of the business plan is complete (using a temlate from the CEB), it's just the content & layout of the financial section that I'm looking for advice on.

Firstly, do I need to include more in this section than P&L accounts, Cash flow projections and a What if P&L?

Secondly, does anyone know of a good guide to drawing up these accounts - the bank and templates that HostBidder wisely recommended have drawn blanks. Bank advised me to ask accountant, but I'd be well able & prefer to do it myself if I had a guide!

Thanks
 
I have tried projections in Excel before and depending on the complexity you could be hours messing about with formulas to match the P&L to the Cashflow and Balance Sheet. If your accounting is rusty I would try a software package.

I normally use the Sage forecasting package which is very good but I'm not sure how user friendly it would be to a non-accountant.

The Big Red Book have a software package which produces financial projections as well as business plans. I have only had a quick look at the demo and it looks ok as long as you don't have any complicated transactions. Maybe another AAM user has more experience of this.

Before you go to the bank, try to get someone else who is in business to have a look over the projections to see if they make sense.

Best of luck!
 
cardigan said:
I have tried projections in Excel before and depending on the complexity you could be hours messing about with formulas to match the P&L to the Cashflow and Balance Sheet. If your accounting is rusty I would try a software package.

I normally use the Sage forecasting package which is very good but I'm not sure how user friendly it would be to a non-accountant.

The Big Red Book have a software package which produces financial projections as well as business plans. I have only had a quick look at the demo and it looks ok as long as you don't have any complicated transactions. Maybe another AAM user has more experience of this.

Before you go to the bank, try to get someone else who is in business to have a look over the projections to see if they make sense.

Best of luck!
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I've used Excel many times in the past and it was OK for straightforward projections. It takes a while to set up but if done right exploring the what if scenarios need not be overly cumbersome. One tip I would give is set up a table for your variables (i.e. the factors you will be looking at for your "what if's") and reference these in formulas when possible so that changing for your various scenarios only entails changing the cells in that table.

I've never used any of the other packages so they might prove more user friendly if you are prepared to spend the money.
 
I suggest that you go with excel, it is the most flexible / adaptable and I have used it to support a small company through rapid growth and development, including getting some serious venture capital.

I think it is the right tool for your purposes and accounting software packages like Sage or the big red book are more suited to maintaining your company's books.

Let me know if you need more.
 
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