1. Introduction to Estimate Financing for Your Business Plan

Part of successfully starting a business is estimating financial information, such as startup costs and projected earnings.

A financial plan determines how much it will cost to start your business and where you will get the resources you need.

It also estimates revenue and profit once you open, so you have an idea of when your business will be profitable.

The financial details in your business plan can help you secure funding from investors and lenders, making it a very valuable resource.

In this lesson, you will estimate startup costs and sources of capital for your business in a spreadsheet.

You will also project profit and loss for the first year.

This kind of financial planning will help you prepare to approach a bank for a business loan.

As you complete this lesson, you will: Edit and format spreadsheets in Google Sheets, Add financial information to your spreadsheets, And use functions to calculate costs, capital, revenue, and profit.

This lesson uses Google Sheets, but you could apply these skills and concepts in any spreadsheet application.

Spreadsheet templates and worksheets from SCORE-dot-org, a resource partner of the U.S.

Small Business Administration, will guide you.

If you don’t have precise figures when working on this lesson, give estimates.

You can update them later.

If you already created a business plan document, after you estimate financial information in a spreadsheet, you can also choose to: Add financing information to your business plan document, And organize and format information in your business plan.

To work on this lesson, sign in to your Google account.

Open a new tab in your browser, and navigate to Google dot com.

If you are not signed in, do so now.

To begin, click on the “startup expenses and capital” worksheet that accompanies this lesson.

Make a copy and rename it.

Then, move on to the next video to begin estimating your start-up expenses.

Now, it’s your turn: Open the “startup expenses and capital” worksheet.