Chapter 2

Creating a Business Plan Forecast

IN THIS CHAPTER

check Enjoying a little refresher on financial statements and ratios

check Working with the business plan workbook

check Understanding the workbook’s formulas

check Customizing the workbook

Pro forma financial statements — which are income statements, balance sheets, and cash-flow statements — constitute an integral part of business planning and the overall budgeting process. For that reason, I want to provide you a bit of information about how you create such pro forma (or as if) statements.

From the very start, however, I need to warn you that to create such statements, you need a tool in addition to QuickBooks. Specifically, you need a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel.

Assuming that you do have something like Excel, you can use it and the example workbook that this chapter describes to create a simple, yet sophisticated, financial forecast for your business. To download the workbook, type http://stephenlnelson.com/wp-content/uploads/10_year_bizplan-1.xlsx in your web browser’s address bar.

Reviewing Financial Statements and Ratios ...

Get QuickBooks 2020 All-in-One For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.