How To Create a Business Start-up Budget

Here's How:

1. Create a Start-up Budget
   Begin by determining what you will "day one" of your business, in order to open the doors (or take your website live) and begin accepting customers. A start-up budget can be broken down into four categories (depending on your situation, some of the categories may not apply to your business.)

   Facilities. This section includes lease security deposits, furniture and fixtures, tenant improvements, and signage.
   Equipment, including office furniture, computers, and equipment and production and shipping equipment and machinery.
   

2. Continuing with start-up costs:
   Materials and supplies, for your office and production areas and a supply of start-up advertising and promotion materials.
   Other costs, like initial attorney and accounting set-up fees, licenses and permits, insurance deposits, and fees to set up your business type.

   Include items you are contributing to the business, like a computer and office furniture. Note these items so you can get credit for them as collateral.

3. Monthly Fixed Expenses. Gather information about your fixed expenses - those that do not change with the number of customers you have. Here is a list of the most common fixed expenses:
   

   • Rent
     
   • Utilities
     
   • Phones (business phones and cell phones
     
   • Credit card processing - monthly fee for service
     
   • Website service fees
     
   • Equipment Lease Payments
     
   • Office Supplies
     
   • Dues/Subscriptions
     
   • Advertising, Publicity, and Promotion commitments, like phone book, online ads
     
   • Business insurance
     
   • Professional fees (legal and accounting)
     
   • Employee Pay/Benefits
     
   • Misc. Expenses
     
   • Business Loan Payment

4. Variable Expenses. Add expenses that vary with customers. These might include:
   

   • Commissions on sales
     
   • Production costs
     
   • Raw materials
     
   • Wholesale price of goods to be re-sold
     
   • Packaging and shipping costs.

   It will be easiest to get a cost per unit sold for the next step.

5. Estimate Monthly Sales. This is probably the most difficult part of a budget, because you don't know what sales will be for a new company. You might want to do three different sales projections:
   

   • Best case scenario, in which you show your most optimistic estimate for first year sales
     
   • Worst case scenario, in which you show your least optimistic scenario, with very little sales during the first six months to a year
     
   • Likely scenario, somewhere in between. The likely scenario would be the one to show your lender.

6. Determine your collections percentage. To be realistic in your budgeting, you must assume that not all sales will be collected. Depending on the type of business you have and the way customers pay, you might have a greater or smaller collections percentage.

   Include a collections percentage along with your estimate of sales for each month. For example, if you estimate sales in Month One to be $50,000 and your collection percentage is 85%, show your cash for the month to be $42,500.

7. Calculate variable costs for each month based on sales for the month. For example, if your estimated sales for a month are 2,500 units and your variable costs are $5.50 per unit, total variable costs for the month would be $13,750.

   Add monthly variable costs to monthly fixed costs to get total monthly costs (expenses). You might want to calculate your break-even point

   to include with your budget.

8. Create a cash flow statement by combining total costs with total sales and collections for each month. The monthly totals will look something like this:
   

   Monthly sales $50,000
   

   Collected $42,500
   

   Total fixed costs $26,900
   

   Total variable costs $13,750
   

   Total cash balance $2,150

   The $2,150 represents your total cash balance for the month, not your profit.

9. By changing your sales figures using the three scenarios above, you can see the result in your cash balance at the end of each month. This cash balance can give you information about your cash needs and how much you might need to borrow for working capital.

Tips:

1. Use your accounting software program to create your budget, so you can use existing accounts and make changes more easily.
2. If you don't have an accounting software program, you can use a spreadsheet program.
3. Most lenders require three years of cash flow statements on a month-by-month basis, and three years of quarterly and annual Income Statements (P&Ls).
4. Income taxes are a variable expense, and you don't know what taxes you will have to pay until you calculate your net income. Don't include taxes in fixed expenses or variable expenses but make these a separate category.

What You Need

• An accounting software program or spreadsheet program.
• Information on the costs associated with sales of products.