Business Plan Q and A
Q: Where can I get the expense numbers I need to complete my business plan? I'm starting a new business with no history.
A: Your business plan needs to have solid numbers. Forecasting your numbers is the only way you're going to know what's going on in your business. New business or not, you can work expense numbers from the bottom up, and then check them from the top down. Here's how:
Start with a list of the personnel you need. Make sure you include yourself, and do this even if you're the only person involved. Make a list with names or positions or groups on the left and what you will pay them across 12 columns for months, then 3 more columns for the years. Summarize the first 12 months, and the other gross totals for Year 2 and Year 3. This becomes your personnel plan, and it gets you on your way. If you're the only person involved, then it's a simple list, but you still need it because you need to include yourself in the list of expenses.
Next, make a list of operating expenses. Start with what you're paying people from the first list, your payroll. Then make a row on the list for payroll burden –payroll taxes, insurance and benefits. Calculate burden based on payroll. If you have no idea, multiply the payroll by 20% as an estimate.
Continue with other obvious expenses. It doesn't take past history to calculate how much space you need and estimate your monthly rent. You can do that with a few phone calls. Make a few more calls about what you'll end up paying for telephones, computers, Internet Access, bookkeeping, legal services, insurance and other expenses. You should know enough about the business to be able to make estimated guesses for what you will have to spend on advertising, travel, sales and marketing materials and other key expenses.
Make a third list for sales and cost of sales. You can't make or sell a product or offer a service without having a pretty good idea of what it costs to provide. Break things down into components. Even services have cost components that you can estimate if you break them down; A taxi service has gasoline and maintenance; a publication has printing and paper; a store has inventory costs; a restaurant has food and drinks. Make a list and estimate how much you can reasonably expect to sell and what that will cost you.
When those basic lists are done, check them against available industry information. You can find information on the web or it may be in your business plan software (if you're using software packages). This will give you average gross margins and profitability for businesses like yours. This is a standard of comparison: If your gross margin (that's sales less cost of sales) is double the average, then you probably haven't included all your costs. If your profitability is way more than average, than you probably haven't listed all your expenses.
Most of the time, you can get another check on your numbers by looking at published financials of publicly traded companies. Find a few whose business matches yours in some way, and see what they report for percentage gross margins and profitability. Obviously, these are all relatively big companies and their cost structure will be different from your startup, but you should know what they spend and why.
By the time you are done, you should have a solid estimate of costs and expenses. As the business starts, track that estimate against reality, compare back and revise future budgets as often as you need to stay in control of cash flow and profits.
*AllBusiness.com provides resources to help small and growing businesses start, manage, finance and expand their business. The site contains Forms & Agreements, Business Guides, Business Directories, thousands of Articles, Expert Advice, and Business Blogs. Material copyrighted by AllBusiness.com.