Business plan. Sample with calculations

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.