A sales forecast can be laid out in a spreadsheet as a projection of your sales for the next three to five years. The most definite way to indicate your sales forecast is by providing separate blocks for pricing, unit sales, calculated sales, unit costs, and unit cost of sales. Including all these figures will help you calculate your gross margin, which amounts to sales less the cost of sales. It gives you a useful figure for comparing your forecast with other industry reporting ratios.

An expense budget helps you figure out how much it will cost you to make the sales you forecast in the previous section. To make it completely clear you are going to need to differentiate between fixed costs (such as utilities, rent, and payroll) and variable costs (such as marketing costs).
Again, don’t forget that this is a business statement, not accounting, so you will have to estimate things like taxes and interest. Keep it as simple as possible when making your operating expenses estimates.

The income projections statement is the section where you list your projected profits and loss for the next three to five years. You can use the numbers you’ve included in your sales forecast and expenses to help you calculate these figures. You’ll also have to assess your assets and liabilities which are not covered under your income projections.
Think about inventory, money owed to you, and assets such as equipment. Under liabilities, you will list any possible outstanding loans and any other bills you may not be able to pay.

The cash-flow Statement of your financial business plan indicates the movement of money in and out of your business. This section is based on a combination of your sales forecast and balance between your projected income and expenses.

If your business plan for the year is to start a new business, you will need to create a cash-flow projection. For an existing business and most clients we serve, you can base your cash-flow statement on balance sheets and profit and loss statements from previous years.

The break-even analysis is a calculation of how much your company will have to sell to cover your expenses.

As a business owner, you may consider hiring a bookkeeper to handle your account once your business is running. You will need to understand your business’ financial statements and use them as a basis for making decisions about your company.
In the long run, the financial statements in your business plan will outline the growth and potential of your business. And once you can show where your financial performance figures are coming from, you will significantly increase your chances of getting funding from lenders or investors.