Business Plan Financials Template (Excel) — Free

The sheet itself

• Revenue built from customers × revenue per customer
• Cost of delivery as a rate, so it scales with revenue
• Payroll stepped by hiring wave, not a flat line
• Investments, funding drawn and the resulting bank balance

How to use it

1. 1

   Start with customers, never with revenue

   A bank will ask where €1.8m comes from. “154 customers at €390 a month by December” is answerable; “€1.8m” is not.

2. 2

   Step the payroll where you actually hire

   The template steps at months 4, 7 and 10. Move the steps to your own hiring plan — a flat payroll line is the fastest way to lose a reader's trust.

3. 3

   Put the funding in the month it is drawn

   Equity and loans arrive on a date, often two or three months after the plan is written. Putting them in month 1 hides exactly the gap you are asking to fund.

4. 4

   Read the lowest closing balance and add a third

   That number is your funding requirement, and every plan is optimistic. Asking for the exact low point means a single late payment puts you back at the table.

A worked example

The mistakes that break it

• Planning to the funding you want

  Working backwards from “we need €120k” produces a plan with no low point, which is the one thing an experienced reader checks first.

• Forgetting VAT on the investments

  €37,000 of equipment costs €44,030 to pay for, and the input tax comes back weeks or months later. The cash gap is real even when the cost is not.

• One plan, no downside

  Every bank asks what happens if revenue is 30% lower. Having that answer ready is worth more than a better base case.

Where the template stops

What comes after the spreadsheet