Business Lecture

Banks don't tend to like lending to businesses were they have more 'capital' in the business than the businesss itself.

Financial Highlights in Executive Summary

-Profit Margin

-Break-Even Point

-When Positive Cash Flow is reached

-Return on Capital Employed

-Anticipated Gearing

Good plans have sensitivity analysis to give the reader a chance to compare scenarios.

Good plans show their assumptions underlying their big ticket items.

Good plans have integrated forecasts and go that extra mile providing health checks (e.g. ROCE, Gearing)

Plans that are honest and try not to hide financial difficulties are better: after all, one point of using financial information is to help people to see risk/rewards. Business plans that display this are often mature and reasoned. Better to show the holes in the plan on paper rather than have them occur in reality.