Planning your business

It is essential to have a realistic, working business plan when you start a business. A business plan is a document that describes a business, its objectives and strategies, the market it is in and its financial forecasts. It serves to clarify your thoughts and share them with a range of other parties including the other directors of the business, potential investors and funding bodies, and business partners. It is also way of measuring your success over time.

The Business Plan

The elements of a business plan which we can help you to create are:

• An executive summary - an overview of the business you want to start. Lenders and investors often make judgments about your business based on this section of the plan.
• A short description of the business opportunity - who you are, what you plan to sell or offer, and who would buy it.
• Your marketing and sales strategy - why you think people will buy what you want to sell and how you plan to sell to them.
• Your management team and staff - your background and the people you plan to employ.
• Your operations - your offices, production facilities, your IT systems.
• Your Financial forecasts - this translates everything you have said in the previous sections into numbers.

Financial Forecasts

One of the most important things you will need to know when you start your business is how much money you will need to start and run it during the start-up phase. Much of this detail will come out of your business plan but we can help you to create a detailed cash flow projection and capital requirement which you can use to work out your total finance requirement for the first year.

Accounting and Control Systems

Your internal accounting and control system is vital to allow you to manage your business and comply with statutory requirements. We can advise you on the best and most appropriate software system to use. Additionally, you will need a system for forecasting and reporting so that you have all the management information you will need to avoid the problems that afflict so many start-up companies.