There are so many different types of financial statements that exist before entrepreneurs. It is not very easy to construct a financial statement if you have a small business. Financial statements are of different sizes and shapes. The very first thing to do would be to know what exactly a financial statement is. And the next one is to understand How to Make a Financial Statement for Small Business. A financial statement is a record of the financial activities of your small business.
How Do I Write a Financial Plan for My Business?
This record is a formal one. The plans that your financial statement includes the current landscape of any small business. This can help you forecast the plans and the visions of this small business of yours. Creating a financial statement can become easier when you understand the value of bookkeeping daily.
If you are an entrepreneur of your small business, you need to put all the data from your records and organize them in your financial statement. It can be very beneficial for your future as you calculate each detail present in your business’s accounting reports. The key to knowing How to Make a Financial Statement for Small Business is that you write the best financial plan. Here are some steps that you need to follow to make the most appropriate financial plan for your small business.
1. Make Your Sales Forecast – You need a spreadsheet to project all your sales for the past three years. Make different columns and different sections for each year and each month. There should also be blocks in your spreadsheet that should include unit sales, pricing, and finally multiplies that can help you in calculating the cost for all your sales. This will further help you to calculate your gross margin.
2. Make A Budget Plan For Your Expenses – The sales that you have forecasted will involve a certain cost. Now, it is for you to understand how much it can cost from the sales you make. All your payroll and rent, along with the variable costs, need to be considered. Keeping these things in mind, you need to estimate your taxes and interest, after which you need to multiply the balance of all your estimated debts to estimate your interest rate.
3. Develop A Statement For Your Business’ Cash Flow – This can show the moving in and moving out of physical money from your business. The cash flow statement is based partially on your items of the balance sheet, sales forecasts, and various other assumptions. The existing business needs to have a history of all the financial statements for projecting cash flow. The new businesses need to start to project the cash flow and is broken down into a year. It is important to get all these projections to know further how to invoice.
4. Projection Of Your Net Profit – The pro forma loss and profit should be your very next step in this case for the business that you own for almost three years. You can put numbers in your sales forecast, the cash flow statement, and expense projections for that reason. Your net profit is your gross margin subtracted from the taxes, interests, and expenses.
5. Deal With All Your Liabilities & Assets – As a business entrepreneur, you need to know and understand the liabilities and assets that are not included in the loss statement of profit statements. You need to then project all your net worth at the end of every fiscal year. The estimation and compilation of the money you might have in your money every month need to be done. This includes the accounts you receive or the money that is owed to your business. It also includes inventory, equipment, buildings, and land. You need to finally figure out the debts or liabilities that include debts, outstanding loans, and accounts payable.
6. Finding the Breakeven Point – This breakeven point is considered to be the point when your business can match the sales volume. The projection of the income of your three years. This needs to enable you to obtain the following analysis. Your business needs to be viable to the overall revenue so that it can finally exceed your business’s overall expenses. This is the most important information to gather for various potential investors, especially the ones who are investing in a growing company.
What are the different types of Financial Statements?
Before you can learn How to Make a Financial Statement for small business, you need to know other important things. One should know that a financial statement is the most important part of any good business plan. This is because a good financial statement can help this small business of yours to attract bank loans or investors. There are different kinds of financial statements that you can create for yourself. Some of these types include:
1. Income Sheet – The income sheet shows all your expenses, revenues, loss, and income per specific period. Given below are the instructions to follow if you want to create an income sheet as a part of your financial sheet.
● You need to first start by gathering every type of earning for the time that your statement can cover.
● The sources of all your earnings can be income or retail sales and wholesale sales from the rent of propriety.
● The next step would be to make a total of all your expenses that includes you spending money on payroll, business property rent, equipment,
materials, utilities, and advertisements.
● Finally, find out the bottom line of your business just by subtracting the total expenses you spent from the total income that you earn.
2. Balance Sheet – A balance sheet can show you shareholder equity, liabilities, and assets for a very specific period. You need to follow some steps to create a balance sheet for your business.
● You need to, at first, start lifting all your assets on the very left side of your page.
● This listing should include the cash that you have in your bank, as well as in hand.
● Apart from that, it also includes the value of the equipment that you own in your business.
● Your inventory value that is included in your financial assets and your stock is also included in this balance sheet.
● On your page’s right side should be the listing of all your liabilities. These include The balances of your credit card, money owed by your company, bank loans,
and accounts payable.
● You need to then make a total of your liabilities and your assets.
● Finally,
you subtract the liabilities from the assets. The amount that is finally left is called the owner equity.
3. Cash Flow Statement – This cash flow statement shows the outflows as well as inflows of cash as well as your ending balance during a specific period. There are three sections of the cash flow statement. These three sections include financing activities, investing activities, and operating activities.
● You need to At first, start with determining your net income. The first thing that you need to do is an income statement, as well as a balance sheet that is completed from the current period as well as the previous one.
● From your operating activities, you need to start calculating all your cash flows. This might include items that are non-cash.
● You need to then start figuring out the cash flow that is involved with your other operations.
● The next step would be determining your cash flows from your investing activities.
● You need to then look for the cash that is available from your financing. Here, you would need to focus mostly on the financing that your business requires, especially loans.
● Your final step would be to make a layout of your cash flow statements. For that, you can add your last year’s cash. In case you have started your business with a cash deficit, then you can either add or subtract that to your current year’s cash.
What Should Be Included in a Financial Statement?
Your financial activity and financial health to many potential creditors and investors are reported in the financial statement. In order to send this report to the external stakeholders, your small business needs to prepare many reports in accordance with the accounting principles of the US. These accounting principles are generally accepted.
The creditors and investors will find it a lot easier to compare the financial health of your company with various other companies just by comparing your financial statement. Thus, it is considered to be a standard practice to include all these elements given below in the financial statement that you are preparing.
1. Comprehensive Income – This includes every change in the net assets or equity during a specific period. The net assets that result from your investments from either distribution to owners or by owners themselves, however, do not change at all.
2. Assets – There are many economic benefits that are both managed and obtained by any external entity for the past transactions.
3. Equity – This is basically known to be the residual interest that is found in the assets. This residual remains after the deduction of its liabilities. In that case, the company’s ownership interest is equity.
4. Owners’ Distribution – The decrease in the net assets can be claimed to be the distribution to the owners. This decrease results from rendering services, incurring liabilities, and transferring assets to owners. The ownership interest is decreased because of these distributions to different owners.
5. Gains – The increase in net assets or equity from the transactions of your business and various other transactions. The transactions that are excluded in this case are the ones resulting from investments and revenues by an owner.
6. Expenses – This includes all the cash outflows, incurring liabilities, and the use of assets during a specific period from producing and delivering services or goods. These goods or services are those that are responsible for the making up of all the central operations.
7. Owner’s Investments – The transfers that result in an increase in equity or net assets. These transfers take place from other entities that have a specific value to either increase or obtain ownership interest.
8. Revenues – These are enhancements or inflows of the assets of any small settlement or business of all its liabilities for a specific period. These are done from producing and delivering rendering services, goods, and many other activities that are known for constituting the ongoing central operations of many businesses.
9. Liabilities – These are future sacrifices that are quite probable. The sacrifices are of many economic benefits from the current obligations for transferring assets or providing services for your future benefit. This can occur due to past events or past transactions.
10. Losses – This involves a decrease in the net assets or equity from various events or business transactions. Not only that, but it also involves various transactions that affect business during a specific period. The one that is excluded from getting affected is the ones resulting from various distributions and expenses to owners.
Summing Up!
We have very carefully mentioned all the details about How to Make a Financial Statement for Small Business. You need to keep each detail in mind before you think about making your small business more successful and make the outreach of it bigger and better. You need to also understand every step that you need to follow in order to maintain the financial flow for your business so that you can achieve your desired goal. There are many samples that you can find online with the help of which you can make these spreadsheets of income and balance sheets. Each sheet needs to be very systematic and accurate.
