business plan financial spreadsheets

Simple Business Plan Template for Startups, Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs

Financial plan, what is a financial plan.

A business’ financial plan is the part of your business plan that details how your company will achieve its financial goals. It includes information on your company’s projected income, expenses, and cash flow in the form of a 5-Year Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. The plan should also detail how much funding your company needs and the key uses of these funds.

The financial plan is an important part of the business plan, as it provides a framework for making financial decisions. It can be used to track progress and make adjustments as needed.

Why Your Financial Plan is Important

The financial section of your business plan details the financial implications of running your company. It is important for the following two reasons:

Making Informed Decisions

A financial plan provides a framework for making decisions about how to use your money. It can help you determine whether or not you can afford to make a major purchase, such as a new piece of equipment.

It can also help you decide how much money to reinvest in your business, and how much to save for paying taxes.

A financial plan is like a roadmap for your business. It can help you track your progress and make adjustments as needed. The plan can also help you identify potential problems before they arise.

For example, if your sales are below your projections, you may need to adjust your budget accordingly.

Your financial plan helps you understand how much outside funding is required, when your levels of cash might fall low, and what sales and other goals you need to hit to become financially viable.

Securing Funding

This section of your plan is absolutely critical if you are trying to secure funding. Your financial plan should include information on your revenue, expenses, and cash flow.

This information will help potential investors or lenders understand your business’s financial situation and decide whether or not to provide funding.

Include a detailed description of how you plan to use the funds you are requesting. For example, what are the key uses of the funds (e.g., purchasing equipment, paying staff, etc.) and what are the future timings of these financial outlays.

The financial information in your business plan should be realistic and accurate. Do not overstate your projected revenues or underestimate your expenses. This can lead to problems down the road.

Potential investors and lenders will be very interested in your future projections since it indicates whether you will be able to repay your loans and/or provide a nice return on investment (ROI) upon exit.

Financial Plan Template: 4 Components to Include in Your Financial Plan

The financial section of a business plan should have the following four sub-sections:

Revenue Model

Here you will detail how your company generates revenues. Oftentimes this is very straightforward, for instance, if you sell products. Other times, your answer might be more complex, such as if you’re selling subscriptions (particularly at different price/service levels) or if you are selling multiple products and services.

Financial Overview & Highlights

In developing your financial plan, you need to create full financial forecasts including the following financial statements.

5-Year Income Statement / Profit and Loss Statement

An income statement, also known as a profit and loss statement (P&L), shows how much revenue your business has generated over a specific period of time, and how much of that revenue has turned into profits. The statement includes your company’s revenues and expenses for a given time period, such as a month, quarter, or year. It can also show your company’s net income, which is the amount of money your company has made after all expenses have been paid.

5-Year Balance Sheet

A balance sheet shows a company’s financial position at a specific point in time. The balance sheet lists a company’s assets (what it owns), its liabilities (what it owes), and its equity (the difference between its assets and its liabilities).

The balance sheet is important because it shows a company’s financial health at a specific point in time. A strong balance sheet indicates that a company has the resources it needs to grow and expand. A weak balance sheet, on the other hand, may indicate that a company is struggling to pay its bills and may be at risk of bankruptcy.

5-Year Cash Flow Statement

A cash flow statement shows how much cash a company has on hand, as well as how much cash it is generating (or losing) over a specific period of time. The statement includes both operating and non-operating activities, such as revenue from sales, expenses, investing activities, and financing activities.

While your full financial projections will go in your Appendix, highlights of your financial projections will go in the Financial Plan section.

These highlights include your Total Revenue, Direct Expenses, Gross Profit, Other Expenses, EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization), and Net Income projections. Also include key assumptions used in creating these future projections such as revenue and cost growth rates.

Funding Requirements/Use of Funds

In this section, you will detail how much outside funding you require, if any, and the core uses of these funds.

For example, detail how much of the funding you need for:

• Product Development
• Product Manufacturing
• Rent or Office/Building Build-Out

Exit Strategy

If you are seeking equity capital, you need to explain your “exit strategy” here or how investors will “cash out” from their investment.

To add credibility to your exit strategy, conduct market research. Specifically, find other companies in your market who have exited in the past few years. Mention how they exited and the amounts of the exit (e.g., XYZ Corp. bought ABC Corp. for $Y).  

Business Plan Financial Plan FAQs

What is a financial plan template.

A financial plan template is a pre-formatted spreadsheet that you can use to create your own financial plan. The financial plan template includes formulas that will automatically calculate your revenue, expenses, and cash flow projections.

How Can I Download a Financial Plan Template?

Download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template which includes a complete financial plan template and more to help you write a solid business plan in hours.

How Do You Make Realistic Assumptions in Your Business Plan?

When forecasting your company’s future, you need to make realistic assumptions. Conduct market research and speak with industry experts to get a better idea of the key trends affecting your business and realistic growth rates.

You should also use historical data to help inform your projections. For example, if you are launching a new product, use past sales data to estimate how many units you might sell in Year 1, Year 2, etc.

Learn more about how to make the appropriate financial assumptions for your business plan.

How Do You Make the Proper Financial Projections for Your Business Plan?

Your business plan’s financial projections should be based on your business model and your market research. The goal is to make as realistic and achievable projections as possible.

To create a good financial projection, you need to understand your revenue model and your target market. Once you have this information, you can develop assumptions around revenue growth, cost of goods sold, margins, expenses, and other key metrics.

Once you have your assumptions set, you can plug them into a financial model to generate your projections.

Learn more about how to make the proper financial projections for your business plan.

What Financials Should Be Included in a Business Plan?

There are a few key financials that should be included in a traditional business plan format. These include the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement.

Income Statements, also called Profit and Loss Statements, will show your company’s expected income and expense projections over a specific period of time (usually 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years). Balance Sheets will show your company’s assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific point in time. Cash Flow Statements will show how much cash your company has generated and used over a specific period of time.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template includes a complete financial plan template to easily create these financial statements and more so you can write a great business plan in hours.

BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE OUTLINE

• Business Plan Template Home
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. Company Overview
• 3. Industry Analysis
• 4. Customer Analysis
• 5. Competitive Analysis
• 6. Marketing Plan
• 7. Operations Plan
• 8. Management Team
• 9. Financial Plan
• 10. Appendix
• Business Plan Summary

Other Helpful Business Planning Articles & Templates

How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

Free business plan templates and examples

Kickstart your business plan writing with one of our free business plan templates or recommended tools.

Free business plan template

Download a free SBA-approved business plan template built for small businesses and startups.

Download Template

One-page plan template

Download a free one-page plan template to write a useful business plan in as little as 30-minutes.

Sample business plan library

Explore over 500 real-world business plan examples from a wide variety of industries.

View Sample Plans

How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

Related Articles

3 Min. Read

What to Include in Your Business Plan Appendix

1 Min. Read

How to Calculate Return on Investment (ROI)

5 Min. Read

How To Write a Business Plan for a Life Coaching Business + Free Example

7 Min. Read

How to Write a Bakery Business Plan + Sample

The Bplans Newsletter

The Bplans Weekly

Subscribe now for weekly advice and free downloadable resources to help start and grow your business.

We care about your privacy. See our privacy policy .

The quickest way to turn a business idea into a business plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

No thanks, I prefer writing 40-page documents.

Discover the world’s #1 plan building software

Filter by Keywords

10 Free Business Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

Turning your vision into a clear and coherent business plan can be confusing and tough. 

Hours of brainstorming and facing an intimidating blank page can raise more questions than answers. Are you covering everything? What should go where? How do you keep each section thorough but brief?

If these questions have kept you up at night and slowed your progress, know you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together the top 10 business plan templates in Word, Excel, and ClickUp—to provide answers, clarity, and a structured framework to work with. This way, you’re sure to capture all the relevant information without wasting time. 

And the best part? Business planning becomes a little less “ugh!” and a lot more “aha!” 🤩

What is a Business Plan Template?

What makes a good business plan template, 1. clickup business plan template, 2. clickup sales plan template, 3. clickup business development action plan template, 4. clickup business roadmap template, 5. clickup business continuity plan template, 6. clickup lean business plan template, 7. clickup small business action plan template, 8. clickup strategic business roadmap template , 9. microsoft word business plan template by microsoft, 10. excel business plan template by vertex42.

A business plan template is a structured framework for entrepreneurs and business executives who want to create business plans. It comes with pre-arranged sections and headings that cover key elements like the executive summary , business overview, target customers, unique value proposition, marketing plans, and financial statements.  

A good business plan template helps with thorough planning, clear documentation, and practical implementation. Here’s what to look for:

• Comprehensive structure: A good template comes with all the relevant sections to outline a business strategy, such as executive summary, market research and analysis, and financial projections 
• Clarity and guidance: A good template is easy to follow. It has brief instructions or prompts for each section, guiding you to think deeply about your business and ensuring you don’t skip important details
• Clean design: Aesthetics matter. Choose a template that’s not just functional but also professionally designed. This ensures your plan is presentable to stakeholders, partners, and potential investors
• Flexibility : Your template should easily accommodate changes without hassle, like adding or removing sections, changing content and style, and rearranging parts 🛠️ 

While a template provides the structure, it’s the information you feed it that brings it to life. These pointers will help you pick a template that aligns with your business needs and clearly showcases your vision.

10 Business Plan Templates to Use in 2024

Preparing for business success in 2024 (and beyond) requires a comprehensive and organized business plan. We’ve handpicked the best templates to help you guide your team, attract investors, and secure funding. Let’s check them out.

If you’re looking to replace a traditional business plan document, then ClickUp’s Business Plan Template is for you!

This one-page business plan template, designed in ClickUp Docs , is neatly broken down into the following sections:

• Company description : Overview, mission, vision, and team
• Market analysis : Problem, solution, target market, competition, and competitive advantage
• Sales and marketing strategy : Products/services and marketing channels
• Operational plan : Location and facilities, equipment and tools, manpower, and financial forecasts
• Milestones and metrics: Targets and KPIs

Customize the template with your company logo and contact details, and easily navigate to different sections using the collapsible table of contents. The mini prompts under each section guide you on what to include—with suggestions on how to present the data (e.g., bullet lists, pictures, charts, and tables). 

You can share the document with anyone via URL and collaborate in real time. And when the business plan is ready, you have the option to print it or export it to PDF, HTML, or Markdown.

But that’s not all. This template is equipped with basic and enterprise project management features to streamline the business plan creation process . The Topics List view has a list of all the different sections and subsections of the template and allows you to assign it to a team member, set a due date, and attach relevant documents and references.

Switch from List to Board view to track and update task statuses according to the following: To Do, In Progress, Needs Revision, and Complete. 

This template is a comprehensive toolkit for documenting the different sections of your business plan and streamlining the creation process to ensure it’s completed on time. 🗓️

If you’re looking for a tool to kickstart or update your sales plan, ClickUp’s Sales Plan Template has got you covered. This sales plan template features a project summary list with tasks to help you craft a comprehensive and effective sales strategy. Some of these tasks include:

• Determine sales objectives and goals
• Draft positioning statement
• Perform competitive analysis
• Draft ideal customer persona
• Create a lead generation strategy

Assign each task to a specific individual or team, set priority levels , and add due dates. Specify what section of the sales plan each task belongs to (e.g., executive summary, revenue goals, team structure, etc.), deliverable type (such as document, task, or meeting), and approval state (like pending, needs revisions, and approved).

And in ClickUp style, you can switch to multiple views: List for a list of all tasks, Board for visual task management, Timeline for an overview of task durations, and Gantt to get a view of task dependencies. 

This simple business plan template is perfect for any type of business looking to create a winning sales strategy while clarifying team roles and keeping tasks organized. ✨

Thinking about scaling your business’s reach and operations but unsure where or how to start? It can be overwhelming, no doubt—you need a clear vision, measurable goals, and an actionable plan that every member of your team can rally behind. 

Thankfully, ClickUp’s Business Development Action Plan Template is designed to use automations to simplify this process so every step toward your business growth is clear, trackable, and actionable.

Start by assessing your current situation and deciding on your main growth goal. Are you aiming to increase revenue, tap into new markets, or introduce new products or services? With ClickUp Whiteboards or Docs, brainstorm and collaborate with your team on this decision.

Set and track your short- and long-term growth goals with ClickUp’s Goals , break them down into smaller targets, and assign these targets to team members, complete with due dates. Add these targets to a new ClickUp Dashboard to track real-time progress and celebrate small wins. 🎉

Whether you’re a startup or small business owner looking to hit your next major milestone or an established business exploring new avenues, this template keeps your team aligned, engaged, and informed every step of the way.

ClickUp’s Business Roadmap Template is your go-to for mapping out major strategies and initiatives in areas like revenue growth, brand awareness, community engagement, and customer satisfaction. 

Use the List view to populate tasks under each initiative. With Custom Fields, you can capture which business category (e.g., Product, Operations, Sales & Marketing, etc.) tasks fall under and which quarter they’re slated for. You can also link to relevant documents and resources and evaluate tasks by effort and impact to ensure the most critical tasks get the attention they deserve. 👀

Depending on your focus, this template provides different views to show just what you need. For example, the All Initiatives per Quarter view lets you focus on what’s ahead by seeing tasks that need completion within a specific quarter. This ensures timely execution and helps in aligning resources effectively for the short term.

This template is ideal for business executives and management teams who need to coordinate multiple short- and long-term initiatives and business strategies.

In business, unexpected threats to operations can arise at any moment. Whether it’s economic turbulence, a global health crisis, or supply chain interruptions, every company needs to be ready. ClickUp’s Business Continuity Plan Template lets you prepare proactively for these unforeseen challenges.

The template organizes tasks into three main categories:

• Priorities: Tasks that need immediate attention
• Continuity coverage: Tasks that must continue despite challenges
• Guiding principles: Resources and protocols to ensure smooth operations

The Board view makes it easy to visualize all the tasks under each of these categories. And the Priorities List sorts tasks by those that are overdue, the upcoming ones, and then the ones due later.

In times of uncertainty, being prepared is your best strategy. This template helps your business not just survive but thrive in challenging situations, keeping your customers, employees, and investors satisfied. 🤝

Looking to execute your business plan the “lean” way? Use ClickUp’s Lean Business Plan Template . It’s designed to help you optimize resource usage and cut unnecessary steps—giving you better results with less effort.

In the Plan Summary List view, list all the tasks that need to get done. Add specific details like who’s doing each task, when it’s due, and which part of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) it falls under. The By Priority view sorts this list based on priorities like Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. This makes it easy to spot the most important tasks and tackle them first.

Additionally, the Board view gives you an overview of task progression from start to finish. And the BMC view rearranges these tasks based on the various BMC components. 

Each task can further be broken down into subtasks and multiple checklists to ensure all related action items are executed. ✔️

This template is an invaluable resource for startups and large enterprises looking to maximize process efficiencies and results in a streamlined and cost-effective way.

The Small Business Action Plan Template by ClickUp is tailor-made for small businesses looking to transform their business ideas and goals into actionable steps and, eventually, into reality. 

It provides a simple and organized framework for creating, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking tasks. And in effect, it ensures that goals are not just set but achieved. Through the native dashboard and goal-setting features, you can monitor task progress and how they move you closer to achieving your goals.

Thanks to ClickUp’s robust communication features like chat, comments, and @mentions, it’s easy to get every team member on the same page and quickly address questions or concerns.

Use this action plan template to hit your business goals by streamlining your internal processes and aligning team efforts.

For larger businesses and scaling enterprises, getting different departments to work together toward a big goal can be challenging. The ClickUp Strategic Business Roadmap Template makes it easier by giving you a clear plan to follow.

This template is packaged in a folder and split into different lists for each department in your business, like Sales, Product, Marketing, and Enablement. This way, every team can focus on their tasks while collectively contributing to the bigger goal.

There are multiple viewing options available for team members. These include:

• Progress Board: Visualize tasks that are on track, those at risk, and those behind
• Gantt view: Get an overview of project timelines and dependencies
• Team view: See what each team member is working on so you can balance workloads for maximum productivity

While this template may feel overwhelming at first, the getting started guide offers a step-by-step breakdown to help you navigate it with ease. And like all ClickUp templates, you can easily customize it to suit your business needs and preferences.

Microsoft’s 20-page traditional business plan template simplifies the process of drafting comprehensive business plans. It’s made up of different sections, including:

• Executive summary : Highlights, objectives, mission statement, and keys to success
• Description of business: Company ownership and legal structure, hours of operation, products and services, suppliers, financial plans, etc.
• Marketing: Market analysis, market segmentation, competition, and pricing
• Appendix: Start-up expenses, cash flow statements, income statements, sales forecast, milestones, break-even analysis, etc.

The table of contents makes it easy to move to different sections of the document. And the text placeholders under each section provide clarity on the specific details required—making the process easier for users who may not be familiar with certain business terminology.

No business template roundup is complete without an Excel template. This business plan template lets you work on your business financials in Excel. It comes with customizable tables, formulas, and charts to help you look at the following areas:

• Highlight charts
• Market analysis
• Start-up assets and expenses
• Sales forecasts
• Profit and loss
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow projections
• Break-even analysis

This Excel template is especially useful when you want to create a clear and visual financial section for your business plan document—an essential element for attracting investors and lenders. However, there might be a steep learning curve to using this template if you’re not familiar with business financial planning and using Excel.

Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp

Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.

ClickUp templates go beyond offering a solid foundation to build your business plans. They come with extensive project management features to turn your vision into reality. And that’s not all— ClickUp’s template library offers over 1,000 additional templates to help manage various aspects of your business, from decision-making to product development to resource management .

Sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today to fast-track your business’s growth! 🏆

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

Receive the latest WriteClick Newsletter updates.

Thanks for subscribing to our blog!

Please enter a valid email

• Free training & 24-hour support
• Serious about security & privacy
• 99.99% uptime the last 12 months

Professor Excel

Let's excel in Excel

Business Plan: How to Create Great Financial Plans in Excel

I guess, you are about to write a business plan and that is why you have come to this page. Very good – because in this article I am going to write down my experience with business plans and what I have learned creating them with Microsoft Excel. As I will point out again further down, I will only concentrate on the financial part of business plans. Specifically, how to set it up in Excel. Of course, you can also download an Excel template .

Parts of business plans

As you reached this page I suppose you already have a rough idea of what a business plan is. So, we will skip this part here.

A business plan is a formal written document containing the goals of a business, the methods for attaining those goals, and the time-frame for the achievement of the goals.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan

But one comment concerning the scope of this article: The formal business plan has usually many different parts, in which you describe the business idea and product, the market, competition, legal construct and so on. But typically, investors are most interested in the financial part. They want to know first, what they can get out of it. Of course, the other parts are also very important, but the financial topics usually put everything described in the other sections into numbers.

I’m not going further into the details of all the other parts than then financial section here. Specifically, we will dive into the basics of the financial part and how to model it in Excel.

Please scroll down to download the business plan template. We are going to explore all the following advice with this template.

How to create a business plan in Excel

Advice 1: be clear about the purpose and the recipient of the business plan.

Before you start opening Excel, make sure that you are 100% clear of the purpose this business plan. Is the business plan just for you? Or do you create it for someone else, for example an investor or bank? Although the next steps might still be the same, the focus might be different. For example: Maybe you have a very good understanding of the major assumptions because you have been working in this field for some time. But for someone external you still need to validate them. Of course, in both cases the assumptions should be realistic and goals should be achievable. But maybe for your own peace of mind you would choose more pessimistic assumptions if the plan was only for you.

Advice 2: Go top-down in terms of line items

Now, let’s start in Excel. But how do we start?

My approach is to go top-down. I usually use a basic P&L (“Profit- and loss” calculation) structure to start with, having some placeholders for revenue and costs.

Specifically, I go through the following parts (also shown on the right-hand side).

Let’s assume that you develop and sell Excel add-ins: 50 EUR per license – once-off. You would now start with assumptions of how many you can sell per month and the price. This is your first revenue item. At this point in time, I would leave it like this. We can later drill further down as much as we need (for example modeling discounts, the connection between marketing spending and number of units sold, price changes, etc.).

If we have multiple products, we calculate them in a similar manner.

Cost of goods sold

Cost of goods sold – or COGS – refers to the direct costs of producing the goods sold. Depending on the complexity you could also summarize cost of sales here or keep it separately.

Often, the COGS are directly linked to the number of units produced so you could refer to the numbers already calculated for the revenues.

In our example from above, we don’t have any direct costs for producing the Excel add-ins because we develop them ourselves and our salary will be regarded under “Salaries and Benefits”.

All other expenses

The structure of the expenses highly depends on your business. I usually start with these:

• Salaries and Benefits
• Rent and Overhead
• Marketing and Advertising
• Other expenses

Again, these items might look completely different for you. Example: if you travel a lot for your business, you might plan travel costs separately.

Subtracting costs from the revenue leads to the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). This is one of the important financial performance indicators.

Amortization and depreciation

If you buy any assets for your business (for example machines, computers, even cars), you usually plan to use them over a certain period. When you first buy them, let’s say for 1,000 USD, you basically just exchange money for assets in the same amount. The problem: The assets will decrease in value the longer you use them. Within the cost items above, you don’t regard the acquisition value. So, how to regard them in your business plan?

You only regard the annual decrease of value. If you plan to use your 1,000 USD item for 5 years, you could (plainly speaking), each year regard 200 USD as depreciation.

Please note: If you later plan your cash, you have to make sure that you fully regard the initial sales price and not the depreciation.

The key difference between amortization and depreciation is that amortization is used for intangible assets, while depreciation is used for tangible assets. https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/whats-the-difference-between-amortization-deprecia.aspx

Subtracting the amortization and depreciation from the EBITDA leads to the second key performance indicator, the EBIT (earnings before interest and tax).

Interest and taxes

Eventually, you have to prognose your interest costs (for example what you have to pay for bank loans) and your taxes, which is typically just a percentage of the EBT (the earning before taxes).

Advice 3: Think about the business drivers carefully

Good business plans are driver based.

Business drivers are the key inputs and activities that drive the operational and financial results of a business. Common examples of business drivers are salespeople, number of stores, website traffic, number and price of products sold, units of production, etc. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/modeling/business-drivers/

Let me explain with an example: You want to plan the revenues. You have two different options:

• Revenue per month is split into number of units sold times price per unit.
• Number of units sold is further split into number of salespersons and number of items sold per salesperson and month, and so on.
• Or you could just write a number and every following year you assume a growth in percentage (e.g. +2% per year).

Let’s finish this section with some final comments:

• Choose drivers that are measurable. You will most probably later on compare the drivers to reality and therefore make sure that they are not impossible to measure.
• Figure out, which driver has most impact. You should focus on those first. Driver with no or very limited impact can be skipped initially.
• Are drivers depending on each other? If yes, it should be modeled accordingly.

Advice 4: Choose the smallest period from the beginning in your business plan

So far, we have been focusing on the line items, for example costs, revenue, or drivers. Now, let’s talk about the time frame.

The question is: Should you plan on annual, monthly or any other basis? Or a mix?

I have seen many business plans doing it something like this:

• Plan on monthly basis for the first 24 to 36 months.
• Switch to annual planning for the years 3/4 to 5.

Most business plans are not going beyond 5 years planning period.

My recommendation: Plan on monthly basis for the full period. There will be a point in time when you need to break it down into months. And it is always easier to sum up 12 months for annual values than to drill down from years to months.

Do you want to boost your productivity in Excel ?

Get the Professor Excel ribbon!

Add more than 120 great features to Excel!

Advice 5: Keep a unified, professional business plan structure

This advice should count for most Excel models: Try to keep the same structure throughout the whole Excel file.

• Structure of worksheets: Make sure that most worksheets are set up with the same structure. For example, start with a headline in cell B2, years starting in column H, content in row 10.
• Layout / format of cells: Make sure you use a consistent formatting. For example, Excel provides cell styles – use them. For more recommendations about professional formatting, please refer to this article .
• Universal settings and assumptions should be consolidated on one sheet (for example tax rates, start date, company name).

Advice 6: Document business plan assumptions well

I can not say this often enough: Document your assumptions! Not only the values or variables, also your thoughts behind them. Why have you chosen this value? What is it based on? What is it used for?

Advice 7: Gross vs. net values

This question I am asked quite frequently: Should you use gross or net values? That means, include tax in revenues and costs?

Typically, you only work with net values, excluding VAT. For Germany with a tax rate of 19%, for example, if you invoice 119 EUR to a customer, you would only regard 100 EUR. Also, for costs, you would only regard net values.

Then, in your business plan, you start with revenue minus costs and eventually reach the EBT (earning before tax, please scroll up to see the P&L). From this, you calculate your company tax.

Advice 8: Think ahead

Some more things you should keep in mind when creating your business plan.

• Business plans are “living documents”. Keep in mind that at some point in the future you have to update it or extend it.
• Validate your assumptions: After some time, you will come back to your plan having real life figures. Now, it’s time to compare and – if necessary – adjust the plan.
• a valuation (“Discounted Cash Flow model”),
• liquidity planning,
• bank loan simulations,
• financial dashboards,
• budget planning,
• maybe even the first real official P&L (at least when it comes to the line items of your business plan)
• and much more…

Download business plan template

So, after reading all this description and advice, it’s time to start. Probably many things I have written above sounds like common sense, right? But I can assure you: Doing it and regarding as much advice as possible is not necessarily simple.

That’s why I have decided to create a template. I have pre-filled it with an imaginary example.

I know, there are countless Excel business plan templates around. So, why should you use this one?

• This template is very flexible: I have always included place holders so that you can add much more items if needed.
• In terms of the time frame, I have created monthly columns for up to ten years. Typically, you need less. Then just hide the extra columns.
• Also, I have created a consistent structure throughout the model.
• No fancy Excel functions and formulas, mainly just plain links.

Please feel free to take a look at it. If you like it, just use it. If not, please feel free to create your individual business plan – you now know how to do it!

Download link: Click here to start the download .

Image by koon boh Goh from Pixabay

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Image by Memed_Nurrohmad from Pixabay

Henrik Schiffner is a freelance business consultant and software developer. He lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. Besides being an Excel enthusiast he loves photography and sports.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Privacy Overview

• Product overview
• All features
• App integrations

CAPABILITIES

• project icon Project management
• Project views
• Custom fields
• Status updates
• goal icon Goals and reporting
• Reporting dashboards
• workflow icon Workflows and automation
• portfolio icon Resource management
• Time tracking
• my-task icon Admin and security
• Admin console
• asana-intelligence icon Asana Intelligence
• list icon Personal
• premium icon Starter
• briefcase icon Advanced
• Goal management
• Organizational planning
• Campaign management
• Creative production
• Marketing strategic planning
• Request tracking
• Resource planning
• Project intake
• View all uses arrow-right icon
• Project plans
• Team goals & objectives
• Team continuity
• Meeting agenda
• View all templates arrow-right icon
• Work management resources Discover best practices, watch webinars, get insights
• What's new Learn about the latest and greatest from Asana
• Customer stories See how the world's best organizations drive work innovation with Asana
• Help Center Get lots of tips, tricks, and advice to get the most from Asana
• Asana Academy Sign up for interactive courses and webinars to learn Asana
• Developers Learn more about building apps on the Asana platform
• Community programs Connect with and learn from Asana customers around the world
• Events Find out about upcoming events near you
• Partners Learn more about our partner programs
• Support Need help? Contact the Asana support team
• Asana for nonprofits Get more information on our nonprofit discount program, and apply.

Featured Reads

• Strategic planning |
• Business plan

Business plan template

If you’re looking for a way to start your business off on the right foot, a business plan template can help you establish the foundation for your strategy. Get started in a few clicks with Asana’s free business plan template.

Sign up to use this template.

• A library of 70+ templates
• Hundreds of app integrations
• AI features to get more done—faster

You’re pumped—you just thought of the greatest business idea ever. You want to get started, but you don’t have a plan laid out. You need a loan to get your idea off the ground, and the bank wants to see an in-depth business plan. We’re here to help.

What is a business plan template?

A business plan template is a framework that helps you solidify your ideas in an organized format. Our free business plan template walks you through how to create a new business from scratch, or re-imagine your existing business in a new market.

What components are included in a business plan template?

Our business plan template covers what an organization wants to achieve within three to five years. By using our template, you’ll have a place to capture all of the major information you need in order to complete your business plan. That includes:

Company description : Information like your executive summary , your company’s mission statement and vision, and your founder’s bio. 

Product and services: A high-level overview of what your company provides, including core products or services. This may also include how your product is developed, any potential screenshots or prototypes of your product, and pricing plans.

Marketing plan: How you plan to bring your product into market at a high level. You can add information like a SWOT analysis , target market research, and brand positioning in this section.

Financial plan: Important financial information such as balance sheets, a break-even analysis, and your cash flow projections. 

Management and organization information: Information on your company’s founders, executive team, and the board of directors.

How to use our free business plan template

Using Asana’s free business plan template is simple. Start by creating a new project with our free template. From there, add relevant information for your specific business plan in the sections provided in our template. If there’s more information you want to include in your business plan, you’re free to add sections, custom fields, or additional tasks to make this template fit your needs.

Integrated features

Goals . Goals in Asana directly connect to the work you’re doing to hit them, making it easy for team members to see what they’re working towards. More often than not, our goals live separate from the work that goes into achieving them. By connecting your team and company goals to the work that supports them, team members have real-time insight and clarity into how their work directly contributes to your team—and company—success. As a result, team members can make better decisions. If necessary, they can identify the projects that support the company’s strategy and prioritize work that delivers measurable results. 

Reporting . Reporting in Asana translates project data into visual charts and digestible graphs. By reporting on work where work lives, you can reduce duplicative work and cut down on unnecessary app switching. And, because all of your team’s work is already in Asana, you can pull data from any project or team to get an accurate picture of what’s happening in one place.

Milestones . Milestones represent important project checkpoints. By setting milestones throughout your project, you can let your team members and project stakeholders know how you’re pacing towards your goal. Use milestones as a chance to celebrate the little wins on the path towards the big project goal. 

Project Overview . Project Overview is your one-stop-shop for all important project context. Give your team a bird’s-eye view of the what, why, and how of your project work. Add a project description to set the tone for how you’ll work together in Asana. Then, share any important resources and context—like meeting details, communication channels, and project briefs—in one place.

Recommended apps

Microsoft Teams . With the Microsoft Teams + Asana integration, you can search for and share the information you need without leaving Teams. Easily connect your Teams conversations to actionable items in Asana. Plus, create, assign, and view tasks during a Teams Meeting without needing to switch to your browser.

Slack . Turn ideas, work requests, and action items from Slack into trackable tasks and comments in Asana. Go from quick questions and action items to tasks with assignees and due dates. Easily capture work so requests and to-dos don’t get lost in Slack. 

Google Workplace . Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

Gmail . With the Asana for Gmail integration, you can create Asana tasks directly from your Gmail inbox. Any tasks you create from Gmail will automatically include the context from your email, so you never miss a beat. Need to refer to an Asana task while composing an email? Instead of opening Asana, use the Asana for Gmail add-on to simply search for that task directly from your Gmail inbox. 

How do I create a business plan template? .css-i4fobf{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform 200ms ease-in-out;transition:transform 200ms ease-in-out;-webkit-transform:rotateZ(0);-moz-transform:rotateZ(0);-ms-transform:rotateZ(0);transform:rotateZ(0);}

Instead of taking the time to create a business plan from scratch, start the process off with Asana’s free template.To further customize your template, add evergreen information about your specific business, such as your business model, company name, address, mission statement, value proposition, or target audience. Adding these details to your template lets you avoid documenting this information from scratch every time you create a new business plan.

What components should I include in a business plan template?

Business plan templates typically contain five main sections: a company description, products and services, a marketing plan, basic management and organization information, and your current financial plan.

How long should my business plan be?

Short answer—as long as you need it to be. The long answer is that your business plan should have the answers to specific questions on how your business is run, from the perspective of an investor. The goal of a business plan is to highlight your business strategy for the next three to five years. This means any important operational, financial, and strategic information should be included. 

Related templates

Action plan template

Taking action has never been easier. Learn how to create a reusable action plan template in Asana to take the guesswork out of strategic planning.

Marketing strategy

A marketing strategy template is a useful tool that helps your marketing team achieve their goals. Learn how to create your marketing strategy with Asana.

PEST analysis

A PEST analysis template helps compile info on the external environment affecting your business. Learn how to prevent risk with a PEST analysis template.

Objectives and key results (OKR) template

Learn how to create an OKR template in Asana so you can standardize the goal-setting process for everyone.

Cost benefit analysis template

Digital cost benefit analysis templates are a useful framework to see if a new project or idea is viable. Learn how to create your own in a few simple steps, with Asana.

Nonprofit business plan template

Success doesn’t just happen—it’s planned. Stay focused on your most crucial work with a custom nonprofit business plan template.

Contingency plan

Using a contingency plan template will help you create well-developed strategies to help you protect your business from potential risk. Learn how Asana can help.

Requirements traceability matrix

A requirements traceability matrix template is a tool to help organize project requirements in a concise manner. Learn how to create one for your team.

Creating a digital punch list template can help streamline the final bits of a project for your team. Here’s how to create one.

Go-to-market strategy template

Simplify your GTM strategy with a go-to-market strategy template that aligns teams and keeps work on track. Learn how in Asana.

Project closure template

Endings are important. Create a project closure template to help your team tie up loose ends and finish their projects with confidence.

Project reporting

Stay on top of your project’s performance. Keep everyone on the same page about what’s been completed and where your project is headed.

Product roadmap

What if you could create, share, and update your product roadmap in one place? Everyone could see you’re tackling the right priorities. Start planning your product roadmap with this template.

Program roadmap

Create a program roadmap template and know the exact structure of each program, how they operate, and their future plans—company-wide.

Operational plan template

Learn how Asana’s operations team uses standardized processes to streamline strategic planning—no matter how many stakeholders are involved.

Strategic planning template

When you’re launching a new product, team, or even a new business, strategic planning templates keep you laser-focused and on task.

Annual planning template

Set clear goals and streamline your planning process—so every level of your company is aligned on what’s important.

Competitive analysis template

The more you know about your competitors, the better your strategy will be. Competitive analysis templates use a data-driven approach to see exactly how your business, products, and features compare to your competition.

Crisis management plan

Does your team know what to do during a crisis? Using a crisis management plan template can help keep all your employees on the same page.

SIPOC template

Use your SIPOC template to ensure that the processes outlined in your SIPOC diagrams are consistent and up to your standards.

Small business, big goals

Coming up with your business strategy can be daunting, but Asana helps businesses of all sizes track and hit their goals. See how with a free trial.

Expert-built business plan and financial model templates

Download the template for your business. Customise it. Get funded.

Try restaurant business plan ecommerce financial model Dunkin' Donuts franchise financial model

Trusted by 12,000+ entrepreneurs, consultants and investors

Vetted by professionals at leading organizations

BuSINESS PLANS

Professional powerpoint business plan templates to raise funding.

• 30+ slides already completed
• Business overview
• Updated market research
• Sales & marketing plan
• SWOT, competitive landscape

Financial models

Easy-to-use excel financial models for serious entrepreneurs.

• Profit and loss
• Cash flow statement
• Balance sheet
• Business valuation (DCF)
• 20+ charts and metrics

Privacy Overview

Plan Projections

ideas to numbers .. simple financial projections

Business Plan Financial Projections

Plan Projections provides a template you can use to create simple 5 year business plan financial projections for a start-up or established business. The Plan Projections template is free, easy to set up and customize, and loaded with great features.

We have built the core template using Excel, and when you’re ready for more there are lots of industry specific templates and calculators available to help build your financial projections from the bottom up for any business or industry sector.

Ready to build your financial projections?

Financial projections industry specific templates.

Select Templates from the menu above or choose one of the popular templates below.

Popular Industry Specific Templates

• Restaurant Business Revenue Projection
• Hotel Revenue Projection
• Saas Revenue Projection
• Salon Business Plan Revenue Projection
• Website Traffic Estimator
• Retail Store Revenue Projection
• Coffee Shop Revenue Projection
• Food Truck Revenue Projection
• Bed and Breakfast Business Plan Revenue Projection
• Other Industry Templates …

Financial Projection Calculators

Our calculators, are available to help you calculate revenue, weighted average gross margin, and activity ratios such as accounts receivable, inventory and accounts payable days, for use in the financial projections template.

Select Calculators from the menu above or choose one of the popular calculators below.

Popular Calculators

• Days Payable Outstanding Calculator
• Revenue Projections Calculator
• Sales Forecast Spreadsheet Template
• Business Valuation Calculator for a Startup
• Other Financial Model Calculators …

Financial Projection Online Calculator

Financial projections popular posts.

• Hotel Revenue Projection Excel Template
• Market Size Calculator
• Funding Requirements in a Business Plan
• Coffee Shop Break Even Analysis
• Working Capital Over Total Assets Ratio

Notes and major health warnings Users use this business plan financial projection template at their own risk when deciding how to make financial projections. Consequently we make no warranty or representation as to financial modelling template accuracy. Additionally we are covered by our Terms and Conditions , which you are deemed to have read. This is an example of a five year financial projection template format that you might use when considering how to do a financial business plan and carry out a startup financial analysis. It is purely illustrative. Furthermore this is not intended to reflect general standards or targets for any particular company or sector. If you do spot a mistake in the startup business model template, please let us know and we will try to fix it.

About the Author

Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. Furthermore he has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from a UK University.

Free Financial Projection and Forecasting Templates

By Andy Marker | January 3, 2024

• Share on Facebook
• Share on LinkedIn

Link copied

We’ve collected the top free financial projection and forecasting templates. These templates enable business owners, CFOs, accountants, and financial analysts to plan future growth, manage cash flow, attract investors, and make informed decisions.  On this page, you'll find many helpful, free, customizable financial projection and forecasting templates, including a  1 2-month financial projection template , a  startup financial projection template , a  3-year financial projection template , and a  small business financial forecast template , among others. You’ll also find details on the  elements in a financial projection template ,  types of financial projection and forecasting templates , and  related financial templates .

Simple Financial Projection Template

Download a Sample Simple Financial Projection Template for 

Excel | Google Sheets  

Download a Blank Simple Financial Projection Template for 

Excel | Google Sheets    

Small business owners and new entrepreneurs are the ideal users for this simple financial projection template. Just input your expected revenues and expenses. This template stands out due to its ease of use and focus on basic, straightforward financial planning, making it perfect for small-scale or early-stage businesses. Available with or without sample text, this tool offers clear financial oversight, better budget management, and informed decision-making regarding future business growth. 

Looking for help with your business plan? Check out these  free financial templates for a business plan to streamline the process of organizing your business's financial information and presenting it effectively to stakeholders.

Financial Forecast Template

Download a Sample Financial Forecast Template for 

Download a Blank Financial Forecast Template for 

This template is perfect for businesses that require a detailed and all-encompassing forecast. Users can input various financial data, such as projected revenues, costs, and market trends, to generate a complete financial outlook. Available with or without example text, this template gives you a deeper understanding of your business's financial trajectory, aiding in strategic decision-making and long-term financial stability. 

These  free cash-flow forecast templates help you predict your business’s future cash inflows and outflows, allowing you to manage liquidity and optimize financial planning.

12-Month Financial Projection Template

Download a Sample 12-Month Financial Projection Template for 

Download a Blank 12-Month Financial Projection Template for 

Use this 12-month financial projection template for better cash-flow management, more accurate budgeting, and enhanced readiness for short-term financial challenges and opportunities. Input estimated monthly revenues and expenses, tracking financial performance over the course of a year. Available with or without sample text, this template is ideal for business owners who need to focus on short-term financial planning. This tool allows you to respond quickly to market shifts and plan effectively for the business's crucial first year. 

Download  free sales forecasting templates to help your business predict future sales, enabling better inventory management, resource planning, and decision-making.

Startup Financial Projection Template

Download a Sample Startup Financial Projection Template for 

Download a Blank Startup Financial Projection Template for 

This dynamic startup financial projection template is ideal for startup founders and entrepreneurs, as it's designed specifically for the unique needs of startups. Available with or without example text, this template focuses on clearly outlining a startup's initial financial trajectory, an essential component for attracting investors. Users can input projected revenues, startup costs, and funding sources to create a comprehensive financial forecast.

3-Year Financial Projection Template

Download a Sample 3-Year Financial Projection Template for 

Download a Blank 3-Year Financial Projection Template for 

This three-year financial projection template is particularly useful for business strategists and financial planners who are looking for a medium-term financial planning tool. Input data such as projected revenues, expenses, and growth rates for the next three years. Available with or without sample text, this template lets you anticipate financial challenges and opportunities in the medium term, aiding in strategic decision-making and ensuring sustained business growth.

5-Year Financial Forecasting Template

Download a Sample 5-Year Financial Forecasting Template for 

Download a Blank 5-Year Financial Forecasting Template for 

CFOs and long-term business planners can use this five-year financial forecasting template to get a clear, long-range financial vision. Available with or without example text, this template allows you to plan strategically and invest wisely, preparing your business for future market developments and opportunities. This unique tool offers an extensive outlook for your business’s financial strategy. Simply input detailed financial data spanning five years, including revenue projections, investment plans, and expected market growth. Visually engaging bar charts of key metrics help turn data into engaging narratives.

Small Business Financial Forecast Template

Download a Sample Small Business Financial Forecast Template for 

Download a Blank Small Business Financial Forecast Template for 

Excel | Google Sheets 

The small business financial forecast template is tailored specifically for the scale and specific requirements of small enterprises. Business owners and financial managers can simply input data such as projected sales or expenses. Available with or without sample text, this tool offers the ability to do the following: envision straightforward financial planning; anticipate future financial needs and challenges; make informed decisions; and steer the business toward steady growth.

Elements in a Financial Projection Template

The elements in a financial projection template include future sales, costs, profits, and cash flow. This template illustrates expected receivables, payables, and break-even dates. This tool helps you plan for your business's financial future and growth.   

Here are the standard elements in a financial projection template:   

• Revenue Projection: This estimates future income from various sources over a specific period.
• Expense Forecast: This predicts future costs, including both fixed and variable expenses.
• Profit and Loss Forecast:  This projects the profit or loss by subtracting projected expenses from projected revenues.
• Cash-Flow Projection: This assesses the inflows and outflows of cash, indicating liquidity over time.
• Balance Sheet Projection: This predicts the future financial position, showing assets, liabilities, and equity.
• Break-Even Analysis: This calculates the point at which total revenues equal total costs.
• Capital Expenditure Forecast: This estimates future spending on fixed assets such as equipment or property.
• Debt Repayment Plan: This outlines the schedule for paying back any borrowed funds.
• Sales Forecast:  This predicts future sales volume, often broken down by product or service.
• Gross Margin Analysis:  This looks at the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold.

Types of Financial Projection and Forecasting Templates

There are many types of financial projection and forecasting templates: basic templates for small businesses; detailed ones for big companies; special ones for startup businesses; and others. There are also sales forecasts, cash-flow estimates, and profit and loss projections. 

In addition, financial projection and forecasting templates include long-term planning templates, break-even analyses, budget forecasts, and templates made for specific industries such as retail or manufacturing. 

Each template serves different financial planning needs. Determine which one best suits your requirements based on the scale of your business, the complexity of its financial structure, and the specific department that you want to analyze.

Here's a list of the top types of financial projection and forecasting templates:  

• Basic Financial Projection Template: Ideal for small businesses or startups, this template provides a straightforward approach to forecasting revenue, expenses, and cash flow.
• Detailed Financial Projection Template: Best for larger businesses or those with complex financial structures, this template offers in-depth projections, including balance sheets, income statements, and cash-flow statements.
• Startup Financial Projection Template: Tailored for startups, this template focuses on funding requirements and early-stage revenue forecasts, both crucial for attracting investors and planning initial operations. 
• Sales Forecasting Template:  Used by sales and marketing teams to predict future sales, this template helps you set targets and plan marketing strategies. 
• Cash-Flow Forecast Template: Essential for financial managers who need to monitor the liquidity of the business, this template projects cash inflows and outflows over a period. 
• Profit and Loss Forecast Template (P&L):  Useful for business owners and financial officers who need to anticipate profit margins, this template enables you to forecast revenues and expenses.  
• Three-Year / Five-Year Financial Projection Template: Suitable for long-term business planning, these templates provide a broader view of your company’s financial future, improving your development strategy and investor presentations. 
• Break-Even Analysis Template:  Used by business strategists and financial analysts, this template helps you determine when your business will become profitable. 
• Budget Forecasting Template:  Designed for budget managers, this template uses historical financial data to help you plan your future spending. 
• Sector-Specific Financial Projection Template:  Designed for specific industries (such as retail or manufacturing), these templates take into account industry-specific factors and benchmarks.

Related Financial Templates

Check out this list of free financial templates related to financial projections and forecasting. You'll find templates for budgeting, tracking profits and losses, planning your finances, and more. These tools help keep your company’s money matters organized and clear.

Free Project Budget Templates

Use one of these  project budget templates to maintain control over project finances, ensuring costs stay aligned with the allocated budget and improving overall financial management.

Free Monthly Budget Templates

Use one of these  monthly budget templates to effectively track and manage your business’s income and expenses, helping you plan financially and save money.

Free Expense Report Templates

Use one of these  expense report templates to systematically track and document all business-related expenditures, ensuring accurate reimbursement and efficient financial record-keeping.

Free Balance Sheet Templates

Use one of these  balance sheet templates to summarize your company's financial position at a given time.

Free Cash-Flow Forecast Templates

Use one of these  cash-flow forecast templates to predict future cash inflows and outflows, helping you manage liquidity and make informed financial decisions.

Free Cash-Flow Statement Templates

Use one of these  cash-flow statement templates to track the movement of cash in and out of your business, so you can assess your company’s level of liquidity and financial stability.

Free Discounted Cash-Flow (DCF) Templates

Use one of these  discounted cash-flow (DCF) templates to evaluate the profitability of investments or projects by calculating their present value based on future cash flows.

Free Financial Dashboard Templates

Use one of these  financial dashboard templates to get an at-a-glance view of key financial metrics, so you can make decisions quickly and manage finances effectively.

Related Customer Stories

Free financial planning templates.

Use one of these  financial planning templates to strategically organize and forecast future finances, helping you set realistic financial goals and ensure long-term business growth.

Free Profit and Loss (P&L) Templates

Use one of these  profit and loss (P&L) templates to systematically track income and expenses, giving you a clear picture of your company's profitability over a specific period.

Free Billing and Invoice Templates

Use one of these  billing and invoice templates to streamline the invoicing process and ensure that you bill clients accurately and professionally for services or products.

Plan and Manage Your Company’s Financial Future with Financial Projection and Forecasting Templates from Smartsheet

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

Original text

Access our collection of user-friendly templates for business planning, finance, sales, marketing, and management, designed to assist you in developing strategies for either launching a new business venture or expanding an existing one.

You can use the templates below as a starting point to create your startup business plan or map out how you will expand your existing business. Then meet with a  SCORE mentor to get expert business planning advice and feedback on your business plan.

If writing a full business plan seems overwhelming, start with a one-page Business Model Canvas. Developed by Founder and CEO of Strategyzer, Alexander Osterwalder, it can be used to easily document your business concept.

Download this template to fill out the nine squares focusing on the different building blocks of any business:

• Value Proposition
• Customer Segments
• Customer Relationships
• Key Activities
• Key Resources
• Key Partners
• Cost Structure
• Revenue Streams

For help completing the Business Model Canvas Template, contact a SCORE business mentor for guidance

From creating a startup budget to managing cash flow for a growing business, keeping tabs on your business’s finances is essential to success. The templates below will help you monitor and manage your business’s financial situation, create financial projections and seek financing to start or grow your business.

This interactive calculator allows you to provide inputs and see a full estimated repayment schedule to plan your capital needs and cash flow.

A 12-month profit and loss projection, also known as an income statement or statement of earnings, provides a detailed overview of your financial performance over a one-year period. This projection helps you anticipate future financial outcomes by estimating monthly income and expenses, which facilitates informed decision-making and strategic planning. 

If you’re trying to get a loan from a bank, they may ask you for a personal financial statement. You can use this free, downloadable template to document your assets, liabilities and net worth. 

A Personal Financial Statement is a

Marketing helps your business build brand awareness, attract customers and create customer loyalty. Use these templates to forecast sales, develop your marketing strategy and map out your marketing budget and plan.

How healthy is your business? Are you missing out on potential growth opportunities or ignoring areas of weakness? Do you need to hire employees to reach your goals? The following templates will help you assess the state of your business and accomplish important management tasks.

Whether you are starting your business or established and looking to grow, our Business Healthcheck Tool will provide practical information and guidance.

Learn how having a SCORE mentor can be a valuable asset for your business. A SCORE mentor can provide guidance and support in various areas of business, including finance, marketing, and strategy. They can help you navigate challenges and make important decisions based on their expertise and experience. By seeking out a SCORE mentor, you can gain the guidance and support you need to help grow your business and achieve success.

SCORE offers free business mentoring to anyone that wants to start, currently owns, or is planning to close or sell a small business. To initiate the process, input your zip code in the designated area below. Then, complete the mentoring request form on the following page, including as much information as possible about your business. This information is used to match you with a mentor in your area. After submitting the request, you will receive an email from your mentor to arrange your first mentoring session.

Copyright © 2024 SCORE Association, SCORE.org

Funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.

• Project Management
• Business Valuation
• Real Options Valuation
• Regression Forecasting
• Portfolio Tracking
• Portfolio Optimization
• Excel Invoice Template
• Bond Yield Calculation
• Optimal Hedging Strategy
• Purchase Templates
• Business Finance
• Financial Markets
• Operation Management
• Excel Productivity
• Free Excel Solutions
• Benefits of Excel Solutions
• Convert VBA to OO Basic
• PC Optimization Tools
• Useful Resources
• Quick Answers
• Excel Help Forums
• User Guides
• Send Feedback
• Partner Program
• Education Program

Business Plan Financials

Excel business plan financials for business planning.

• Personal Finance
• Managing Wealth
• Small Business
• Corporate & Institutional
• Our Commitments
• Explore Products & Solutions
• Spending Responsibly

How to Make a Budget Spreadsheet

• A budget spreadsheet simplifies tracking income and expenses, aligning daily spending with overall financial goals.
• Key steps include choosing a user-friendly tool like Excel ® or Google Sheets ® , setting up detailed budget categories, and deciding on a tracking period (monthly, quarterly, yearly).
• Effective budget management involves inputting actual financial data, utilizing formulas for automatic calculations, and comparing planned versus actual spending.
• Regular updates to the budget spreadsheet are crucial for adapting to financial changes and staying on track with goals.

A budget is a  powerful tool that helps you make informed spending and savings decisions. It provides the freedom to spend with confidence, knowing your actions align with bigger-picture financial goals.

Tracking income and expenses by hand may seem like a hassle, but a well-designed budget spreadsheet makes it easy.

Knowing how to make a budget spreadsheet that’s customized to your needs allows you to effectively track finances without the need for expensive software or specialized financial knowledge.

In the following guide, we’ll walk through the process, from selecting the right platform to categorizing expenses and monitoring your progress. It’s an easy solution you can implement right away.

What Is a Budget Spreadsheet and How Is It Used?

A budget spreadsheet is a simple tool for organizing and tracking income and expenses. It provides a clear view of money coming in and going out over a set period of time, typically weekly or monthly. Assigning categories to each income and expense makes it easy to identify trends and uncover potential savings opportunities. Pre-planning weekly or monthly spending also helps ensure there’s enough left over to allocate toward saving for short-term and longer-term financial goals.

Regularly updating and reviewing a budget spreadsheet turns it into an active financial management tool. It helps you spot patterns, such as seasonal increases in utility bills, and proactively adjust the spending and savings goals to reflect changes in income, expenses, or financial priorities.

Choosing the Right Tool for Your Budget Spreadsheet

There is a wide range of tools and software for creating and managing a budget, but how do you make a budget spreadsheet that works well over the long term? To choose a platform that suits your needs, consider the following factors:

• Ease of use : The best budgeting tool is one you use consistently. Look for an option that’s easy to set up and navigate. This will help ensure you’re comfortable making regular updates.
• Accessibility : Consider whether the tool is accessible across devices, such as your phone, tablet, or computer.
• Cost : Free options often work as well as paid tools, allowing for simple budget tracking without additional expense.
• Advanced features : Consider whether the tool offers advanced features such as customizable categories, automatic calculations, and charts and graphs to enhance the budgeting experience.

Popular Spreadsheet Tools: Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets

Microsoft Excel ® and Google Sheets ® are two of the most popular spreadsheet programs. Both are user-friendly and offer a range of budgeting features.

Microsoft Office Excel

Excel, the spreadsheet tool included in Microsoft Office Suite ® , is ideal for those who prefer a detailed budgeting approach and want customizable options. It comes with a range of budgeting templates, allowing for quick, easy setup without the need to manually create rows, columns, and formulas. You’ll find options available for everything from a standard household budget to budgets made specifically for planning events or tracking holiday spending .

Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a user-friendly option that is free to use with a Google account. It includes several pre-made budget templates, including monthly and annual budgets. Sheets are stored in Google Drive ® , a cloud-based platform that allows you to access the budget from wherever you are. This ensures the budget is available from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

The Advantages Of Using a Premade Template

Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets both offer the ability to build a budget spreadsheet from scratch. However, choosing a pre-made budget template offers a ready-made structure, saving time and allowing you to focus on entering financial information right away.

The templates are designed with the user experience in mind, offering clear categories and useful formulas. While they provide a ready-to-use foundation, they’re often fully editable, allowing for small changes to better align the budget spreadsheet with your personal financial goals.

Setting Up Your Budget Categories and Time Frame

Organizing financial transactions into relevant categories helps you easily identify spending habits and make adjustments to help maintain a positive cash flow. The number of categories used depends on your situation, goals, and personal preferences. Begin with two primary categories: Income and Expenses. Then, break these down into relevant sub-categories.

Income Categories

When tracking your income, you may include categories such as:

• Rental income
• Investment income
• Freelance income

Expense Categories

There are several options for tracking budget categories. Depending on your goals and personal preferences, you may choose broad categories or track with greater detail.

General vs. Detailed

General expense categories may include items such as:

• Mortgage/rent
• Credit card payments
• Pet expenses

If you prefer more detail, consider tracking individual bills by creating another layer of sub-categories. For example, the utilities category may include:

• Electric bill
• Heating bill

While detailed categories take more time to set up initially, the additional information can help you identify areas where you could cut costs.

Fixed vs. Variable

You may also categorize expenses based on whether they are fixed or variable. For example, fixed expenses include rent or mortgage, insurance premiums, car payments, and other expenses that remain fairly consistent from month to month.

Variable expenses include items that change from month to month, such as dining out, hobbies, and shopping. Since variable expenses are typically easier to cut if necessary, adding this category can help with financial evaluations.

Savings and Investments

Finally, consider adding a budget category for savings and investments . This may include:

• Contributions to savings accounts
• Emergency fund savings
• Retirement account contributions
• Contributions to other investments

Budgeting for savings and investments helps prioritize these goals, ensuring you’ve set aside money for planned contributions rather than relying on leftover funds.

Determining Your Budget Period

Once you’ve determined key categories, decide how frequently to track, review, and update the budget. Many individuals use monthly or weekly tracking. However, depending on your needs, you may track more or less frequently. Quarterly, annual, or multi-year tracking can help with bigger-picture goals, while weekly or daily tracking helps you stay focused on short-term, specific goals.

You may find it helpful to combine several time periods, for example, using an annual budget to gain clarity on long-term trends and habits while tracking more frequently to allow for real-time adjustments.

Crafting Your Budget: Entering Income and Expenses

Now that the spreadsheet is ready, it’s time to input your financial information. While entering data and crunching numbers may not feel exciting, keep in mind that the spreadsheet will perform all of the calculations almost instantly — turning a potentially tedious task into a quick and satisfying experience. Here’s how to get started.

1. Input Your Data

Since you may not remember all income and expenses offhand, begin by pulling out your last few bank account and credit card statements. Enter each deposit and expense as a separate line item and choose the correct categories.

2. Utilize Formulas

Once you’ve entered all the data, use formulas to quickly perform key calculations, such as totaling expenses, calculating the difference between your income and expenses, or averaging spending to find monthly patterns.

If you’ve used a budget spreadsheet, the formulas are likely already included and will run automatically. Many spreadsheet tools also include pre-made formulas, which you can add for additional analysis.

3. Compare Planned vs. Actual Income and Expenses

Consider setting up separate columns for your projected and actual income and expenses, plus a column for the variance between these figures. This setup offers clear insights into how closely you’re meeting financial targets and areas that need attention. If this is not part of the premade template, add formulas to automatically complete the calculations.

Regularly Monitoring and Updating Your Budget  

Many situations can affect your budget, from a pay raise to a change in expenses or a shift in financial goals. It’s important to regularly review and update the spreadsheet to ensure it remains an effective financial tool. During the review process, make changes as needed so it continues to accurately reflect your financial situation.

Regularly reviewing your budget spreadsheet also helps highlight spending patterns, identify areas for savings, and ensure your finances remain in alignment with short-term and longer-term goals.

Generally, a monthly update is sufficient. However, if you’re actively working to reduce debt or meet a short-term savings goal, weekly updates may prove more beneficial.

Empower Your Personal Finance with a Custom Budget Spreadsheet

Creating a budget spreadsheet is an important step toward taking control of your finances. The key is to start simple, stay consistent, and make adjustments along the way.

Once you’re comfortable with the process of regularly reviewing and updating the spreadsheet, it becomes a powerful tool that guides spending and savings decisions, helping you achieve bigger-picture financial goals.

For more information and financial management tips, read PNC Bank’s Personal Finance Insights . Here, you’ll find various topics designed to help you gain financial knowledge and empower your financial future.

• Manage Daily Finances
• Balance Financial Goals

Apply for a checking account today.

Apply for a checking account

with $0 minimum to open online and Low Cash Mode® to help avoid overdrafts.

Important Legal Disclosures and Information

1. Wall Street Journal, accessed April 2, 2024 https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-gas-prices-surge-stations-now-hold-up-to-175-of-your-money-when-you-swipe-11656277411

Excel is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.

Google is a trademark of Google LLC.

Visa ®  is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association and used under license.

PNC Bank, National Association Member FDIC .

These articles are for general information purposes only and are not intended to provide legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. PNC urges its customers to do independent research and to consult with financial and legal professionals before making any financial decisions. This site may provide reference to Internet sites as a convenience to our readers. While PNC endeavors to provide resources that are reputable and safe, we cannot be held responsible for the information, products or services obtained on such sites and will not be liable for any damages arising from your access to such sites. The content, accuracy, opinions expressed and links provided by these resources are not investigated, verified, monitored or endorsed by PNC.

5-Year Financial Plan Template

Whether you are already running a business, or making plans to start one up, financial planning is a vital part of ensuring your success. Not knowing your expected income and expenditure will make it difficult to plan, and hard to find investors.

This 5-Year Financial Plan spreadsheet will make it easy for you to calculate profit and loss, view your balance sheet and cash flow projections, as well as calculate any loan payments you may have. Whilst the wording on this spreadsheet is focussed around products, it can just as easily be used for businesses who largely provide services to their customers.

5-Year Financial Plan Projection

How to use Financial Plan

Model inputs.

Use the Model Inputs sheet to enter information about your business that will be used to model results seen on the other pages.

Forecasted Revenue

The forecasted revenue section allows you to estimate your revenue for 4 different products. Simply use the white boxes to enter the number of units you expect to sell, and the price you expect to sell them for, and the spreadsheet will calculate the total revenue for each product for the year. If you want to give your products names, simply type over the words "Product 1", "Product 2" etc. and these names will be carried through to the rest of the spreadsheet.

Cost of Goods Sold

Your margins are unlikely to be the same on all of your products, so the cost of goods sold allows you to enter your expected gross margin for each product into the white boxes in Column B. The spreadsheet will automatically calculate the annual cost of goods sold based on this information, along with your forecasted revenue.

Annual Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul

As the cost of annual maintenance, repair and overhaul is likely to increase each year, you will need to enter a percentage factor on your capital equipment in the white box in Column B. This will be used to calculate your operating expenses in the profit and loss sheet.

Asset Depreciation

Use the white box to enter the number of years you expect your assets to depreciate over. This may vary greatly from business to business, as assets in some sectors depreciate much more quickly than they do in others.

In most parts of the world, you will have to pay income on your earnings. Enter the annual tax rate that applies to your circumstances in the white box in Column B. If you have to pay any other taxes, these can be entered later on the Profit and Loss sheet.

Although you cannot be certain of the level of inflation, you will still need to try and plan for it when coming up with a 5-year financial plan. The International Monetary Fund provide forecasts for a number of countries, so is a good place to look if you are unsure what to enter here. Simply enter your inflation rate in the white box.

Product Price Increase

As a consumer, you are no doubt aware that the price of products goes up over time. Enter a number in the white box to show the expected annual price increase of your products to enable the spreadsheet to calculate income in future years. If you are unsure what to put here, increasing your product price in line with inflation is a good starting point. If your business is just starting out, you may be able to command higher prices for your products or services as the years go on, as you build up brand recognition and a good reputation.

The funding section allows you to enter information about your business loan. To use this section, simply fill in the three white boxes representing the amount of the loan, the annual interest rate and the term of the loan in months - for example, 12 for 1 year, 24 for 2 years, 36 for 3 years, 48 for 4 years, or 60 for a 5 year loan.

Profit and loss

This sheet calculates your profit and loss for each year over a 5 year period. The profit and loss assumptions, along with income, are automatically calculated using information entered in the model inputs sheet.

Non-Operation Income

You may have, or be expecting some income in addition to your operating income. These can be entered manually in the white cells in Column B for Year 1, Column C for Year 2 and so on. There are pre-entered categories for rental, lost income and loss (or gain) on the sale of assets, as well as an additional row where you can enter your own non-operation income.

Operating Expenses

Some parts of this are already filled in based on information you put on the Model Inputs, for example, depreciation, maintenance and interest on long-term debt. Years 2-5 are also filled in for you across all categories based on the inflation information entered in the Model Inputs sheet. You therefore only need to enter your Sales and Marketing, Insurance, Payroll and Payroll Tax, Property Taxes, Utilities, Administration Fees and any Other Expenses into the white cells in Column B for Year 1.

Non-recurring Expenses

This section is for entering any expenses that you will not be paying on an annual basis. The Unexpected Expenses row allows you to enter a contingency for unexpected expenses, whilst the Other Expenses row allows you to enter any other one off expenses you may be expecting to make, for example the purchase of new equipment part way into your 5 year plan.

Income Tax is filled in based on the information you enter into the model inputs. Depending on where your business is based, you may find yourself having to pay other taxes. These can be entered in the Other Tax row. You can rename this row by typing over the "Other Tax (specify)" text.

Balance Sheet

The annual balances for Years 1-5 are, in most cases, filled in for you, based on the information you have entered on the Model Inputs sheet and in the Initial Balance column of the Balance Sheet column itself. This makes it very easy to use.

Current Assets

This is where you can enter the value of any of your current assets, with spaces to enter information about Cash and Short-term Investments, Accounts Receivable, Inventory, Prepaid Expenses and Deferred Income Tax. At the bottom of this section is a space for you to enter any other current assets you may have that do not fall into any of these categories.

Property and Equipment

Depending on the nature of your business, you may have assets such as Buildings, Land, Capital Improvements and Machinery. Enter the value of these assets into Column B, and these values will be copied over to each of the 5 years of the plan. The depreciation information entered into the Model Inputs sheet will be used to calculate the depreciation expenses, which allows a total for property and equipment to be calculated automatically.

Other Assets

This section is for entering information on any assets that don't fit in the other sections. These could be Goodwill Payments, Deferred Income Tax, Long-term Investments, Deposits, or any Other long-term assets. Enter the information into Column B, and it will be carried across to the yearly columns automatically.

Current Liabilities

As well as assets, your business is likely to have liabilities. There are spaces to enter Accounts Payable, Accrued Expenses, Notes Payable and Short-term Debt, Capital Leases and Other current liabilities. Just leave blank any rows where you do not have any liabilities, and the totals will be calculated for you.

Your long-term debt/loan information will have already been entered in the Model Inputs sheet, so the only thing to do here is to enter any other long-term debt. Unlike much of the rest of the Balance Sheet, you can manually enter different amounts for each year, as you may, for example, be expecting to take on another loan to purchase some new equipment in Year 3 as your business expands.

Other Liabilities

Use this section to enter any liabilities not covered by the pre-defined labels. You can amend the text in Column A, in order to specify the liabilities, and then enter the cost of these liabilities in Column B.

Your business is likely to have some equity, and this can be entered into this section. You can fill out the Owner's Equity, Paid-in Capital and Preferred Equity in Column B. Your retained earnings are automatically calculated based on the Profit and Loss sheet.

Much of the information on the cash flow sheet is based on calculations in the Balance Sheet. It is important to plan your cash flow carefully, so that you know what funds you will have available to buy new stock and equipment.

Operating Activities

Much of this section is automatically filled in based on your balance sheet. There are only three rows to fill out, which are Amortization, Other Liabilities and Other Operating Cash Flow. You only need to fill out the white boxes in Column B for Year 1, as these values will automatically be carried over into subsequent years for you.

Investing Activities

Your capital expenditures and sale of fixed assets will be automatically populated if you have filled out the relevant sections of the Balance Sheet. They will be blank if they do not apply. As investing activities can vary year on year, you will need to fill out any investment activities for each of the 5 years in the appropriate columns for Acquisition of Business, and any Other Investing Cash Flow items.

Financing Activities

The long-term debt/financing row will be pre-filled based on the loan information previously entered. Use Column B to fill out your Preferred Stock, Total Cash Dividends Paid, Common Stock and Other Financing Cash Flow items for Year 1. This information will automatically carried over to Years 2-5.

Loan Payment Calculator

There is nothing to enter on this sheet, as it is for information only. Whether or not you already have a loan, or are using this spreadsheet as a part of a business plan to help you obtain one, it allows you to easily see how much you will be paying each month, showing how much you are paying off your loan, and how much you are paying in interest. This will allow you to get an idea of whether or not you can afford to borrow a bit extra, if you feel it would allow you to push your business into higher places, or whether you need to shop around for a better interest rate or adjust the loan term in order to afford the loan payments.

Related Templates

I give my financial planning clients 3 money rules — but I break 2 of them all the time

Paid non-client promotion: Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate investing products to write unbiased product reviews.

• I always tell my financial planning clients to keep an emergency fund — but I don't keep cash on hand.
• My investment allocation is weighted heavily toward higher-risk investments.
• Even though I don't follow all my own rules, I always save at least 25% of my income.

As a financial planner and owner of a wealth management firm, I work to ensure our clients have the highest probability of achieving their long-term goals.

That often means giving specific, exact advice on what they must do (and avoid). We've worked with enough clients to have certain guidelines and heuristics we know work for increasing net worth and wealth … so much so that I follow these rules myself.

Most of the time, anyway. While I follow my own advice nine out of 10 times, there are some big rules that financial advisors give all the time that I happily break — and one that I follow without exception.

1. I don't keep an emergency fund

Our general guideline for clients is to keep three to six months' worth of expenses in cash on hand as an emergency fund .

We recommend keeping that money in a highly liquid vehicle, like a high-yield savings account or money market account. Your priority for your emergency fund should be access and safety, not returns.

But I'm almost allergic to keeping cash on hand! I want to funnel most of my available dollars into investments for long-term growth, or back into my business so that it can generate more revenue. I don't keep much cash on hand that isn't earmarked for a specific use in the next few months.

I take the risk of having limited cash on hand for a few reasons. The biggest is that I simply have a high risk tolerance. But I also feel confident in my situation even without a formal emergency fund because:

• I own my business, so have more control over my income than someone who works for one employer. Even if revenue dropped, it's unlikely my personal income would go to $0 overnight in the same way it could if I worked for a company that could lay me off at its discretion.
• My wife and I do have some cash in the bank. It's set aside for various savings goals connected to future spending (like a travel fund and a "date night" fund). If an emergency comes up, we can pull from these cash pools and then work to pay them back later.
• I have access to easy-to-liquidate assets, like I Bonds . I could generate cash relatively quickly in a true emergency (although I'd give up some interest that I otherwise could have earned by doing so).

2. I invest more aggressively for my age than standard advice suggests

If you Google "what should my stock-to-bond allocation be," you might see a general rule of thumb suggesting to subtract your age from 100 to get to the percentage of your portfolio to keep in equities.

I'm 44, so this guideline would have me set up with something like a 60/40 portfolio. Most of our clients, who are also in their 30s and 40s, have portfolios allocated from 60/40 at the very conservative end to 80/20 on the more aggressive end.

However, my portfolio has a 90/10 allocation. I have a much more intricate understanding of market risk and the impact of market downturns. Therefore, I can take more risks because I'm confident that I can comfortably stay in my seat through inevitable market volatility and drops.

I made the choice to optimize for as much growth as possible, because I also know I still have a relatively long timeline between now and when I plan to start tapping portions of my portfolio. That means I not only have the risk tolerance for a more aggressive allocation but also the capacity to take the risk as I have time to ride out the short-term market highs and lows.

The rule I refuse to break: Save (at least) 25% of gross income

I urge my financial planning clients to prioritize their savings and investments. I do the same with my own personal finances. The rule I always keep — no matter what — is to contribute at least 25% of my gross income to investment vehicles designed for long-term growth. That includes a mix of 401(k) accounts, IRAs , and taxable brokerage accounts.

My No. 1 priority in managing my money is to create wealth that will support me and my family now and well into the future. My wife and I want to ensure our own future financial security, and also provide our daughter with more financial stability than we had as kids.

There are various actions I can take to accomplish this goal, but the one that I feel most confident in — and the one that is most under my control to influence — is how much of our household income we put toward building our net worth via our investment portfolios.

Setting aside 25% of household income is non-negotiable for us. My wife and I build our budget around our commitment to this savings rate; what we can spend is determined by what's left over after we save.

Most rules are there for a reason. They help guide us, keep us (or others) safe, and help us understand how to navigate what could otherwise be a chaotic mess with no reliable way to know what to do in certain situations.

But rules can also unnecessarily limit us or slow our progress toward our specific goals. Context always matters, and helps inform when we need to toe the line — and when we should feel free to confidently break the rules.

Watch: 6 simple investing tips for beginners

• Main content

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Become an FT subscriber

Try unlimited access Only $1 for 4 weeks

Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Cancel anytime during your trial.

• Global news & analysis
• Expert opinion
• Special features
• FirstFT newsletter
• Videos & Podcasts
• Android & iOS app
• FT Edit app
• 10 gift articles per month

Explore more offers.

Standard digital.

• FT Digital Edition

Premium Digital

Print + premium digital, ft professional, weekend print + standard digital, weekend print + premium digital.

Essential digital access to quality FT journalism on any device. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• Global news & analysis
• Exclusive FT analysis
• FT App on Android & iOS
• FirstFT: the day's biggest stories
• 20+ curated newsletters
• Follow topics & set alerts with myFT
• FT Videos & Podcasts
• 20 monthly gift articles to share
• Lex: FT's flagship investment column
• 15+ Premium newsletters by leading experts
• FT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition
• Weekday Print Edition
• Videos & Podcasts
• Premium newsletters
• 10 additional gift articles per month
• FT Weekend Print delivery
• Everything in Standard Digital
• Everything in Premium Digital

Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• 10 monthly gift articles to share
• Everything in Print
• Make and share highlights
• FT Workspace
• Markets data widget
• Subscription Manager
• Workflow integrations
• Occasional readers go free
• Volume discount

Terms & Conditions apply

Explore our full range of subscriptions.

Why the ft.

See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times.

International Edition