How to create a financial forecast for a car leasing company?

If you are serious about keeping visibility on your future cash flows, then you need to build and maintain a financial forecast for your car leasing company.

Putting together a car leasing company financial forecast may sound complex, but don’t worry, with the right tool, it’s easier than it looks, and The Business Plan Shop is here to guide you.

In this practical guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about building financial projections for your car leasing company. 

We will start by looking at why they are key, what information is needed, what a forecast looks like once completed, and what solutions you can use to create yours.

Let's dive in!

Why create and maintain a financial forecast for a car leasing company?

Creating and maintaining an up-to-date financial forecast is the only way to steer the development of your car leasing company and ensure that it can be financially viable in the years to come.

A financial plan for a car leasing company enables you to look at your business in detail - from income to operating costs and investments - to evaluate its expected profitability and future cash flows.

This gives you the visibility needed to plan future investments and expansion with confidence. 

And, when your trading environment gets tougher, having an up to date car leasing company forecast enables you to detect potential upcoming financing shortfalls in advance, enabling you to make adjustments or secure financing before you run out of cash.

It’s also important to remember that your car leasing company's financial forecast will be essential when looking for financing. You can be 100% certain that banks and investors will ask to see your numbers, so make sure they’re set out accurately and attractively.

What information is needed to build a car leasing company financial forecast?

The quality of your inputs is key when it comes to financial modelling: no matter how good the model is, if your inputs are off, so will the forecast.

If you are building a financial plan to start a car leasing company, you will need to have done your market research and have a clear picture of your sales and marketing strategies so that you can project revenues with confidence.

You will also need to have a clear idea of what resources will be required to operate the car leasing company on a daily basis, and to have done your research with regard to the equipment needed to launch your venture (see further down this guide). 

If you are creating a financial forecast of an existing car leasing company, things are usually simpler as you will be able to use your historical accounting data as a budgeting base, and complement that with your team’s view on what lies ahead for the years to come.

Let's now zoom in on what will go in your car leasing company's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for a car leasing company

The sales forecast, also called topline projection, is normally where you will start when building your car leasing company financial forecast.

Creating a coherent sales projection boils down to estimating two key drivers:

• The average price 
• The number of monthly transactions

To do this, you will need to rely on historical data (for an existing business), market research data (for both new and existing car leasing companies), and consider the elements below:

After the sales forecast comes the operating expenses budget, which we will now look into in more detail.

The operating expenses for a car leasing company

The next step is to estimate the costs you’ll have to incur to operate your car leasing company.

These will vary based on where your business is located, and its overall size (level of sales, personnel, etc.). 

But your car leasing company's operating expenses should normally include the following items:

This list is not exhaustive by any means, and will need to be tailored to your car leasing company's specific circumstances.

What investments are needed to start or grow a car leasing company?

Once you have an idea of how much sales you could achieve and what it will cost to run your car leasing company, it is time to look into the equipment required to launch or expand the activity.

For a car leasing company, capital expenditures and initial working capital items could include:

Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the specificities of your car leasing company.

The financing plan of your car leasing company

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your car leasing company is to think about how you might finance your business.

You will have to assess how much capital will come from shareholders (equity) and how much can be secured through banks.

Bank loans will have to be modelled so that you can separate the interest expenses from the repayments of principal, and include all this data in your forecast.

Issuing share capital and obtaining a bank loan are two of the most common ways that entrepreneurs finance their businesses.

What tables compose the financial plan for a car leasing company?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your car leasing company's financial forecast.

The forecasted profit & loss statement

The profit & loss forecast gives you a clear picture of your business’ expected growth over the first three to five years, and whether it’s likely to be profitable or not.

A healthy car leasing company's P&L statement should show:

• Sales growing at (minimum) or above (better) inflation
• Stable (minimum) or expanding (better) profit margins
• A healthy level of net profitability

This will of course depend on the stage of your business: numbers for an established car leasing company will look different than for a startup.

The projected balance sheet

Your car leasing company's forecasted balance sheet enables you to assess your financial structure and working capital requirements.

It is composed of three types of elements: assets, liabilities and equity:

• Assets: represent what the business owns and uses to produce cash flows. It includes resources such as cash, equipment, and accounts receivable (money owed by clients).
• Liabilities: represent funds advanced to the business by lenders and other creditors. It includes items such as accounts payable (money owed to suppliers), taxes due and loans.
• Equity: is the combination of what has been invested by the business owners and the cumulative profits and losses generated by the business to date (which are called retained earnings). Equity is a proxy for the value of the owner's stake in the business.

The cash flow forecast

Your car leasing company's cash flow forecast shows how much cash your business is expected to consume or generate in the years to come.

It is best practice to organise the cash flow forecast by nature to better explain where cash is used or generated by the car leasing company:

• Operating cash flow: shows how much cash is generated by the operating activities
• Investing cash flow: shows how much will be invested in capital expenditure to maintain or expand the business 
• Financing cash flow: shows if the business is raising new capital or repaying financiers (debt repayment, dividends)

Keeping an eye on (and regularly updating) your car leasing company's cash flow forecast is key to ensuring that your business has sufficient liquidity to operate normally and to detect financing requirements as early as possible.

If you are trying to raise capital, you will normally be asked to provide a monthly cash flow forecast in your car leasing company's financial plan - so that banks or investors can assess seasonal variation and ensure your business is appropriately capitalised.

Which tool should you use to create your car leasing company's financial projections?

Building a car leasing company financial forecast is not difficult provided that you use the right tool for the job. Let’s see what options are available below.

Using online financial forecasting software to build your car leasing company's projections

The modern and easiest way is to use professional online financial forecasting software such as the one we offer at The Business Plan Shop.

There are several advantages to using specialised software:

• You can easily create your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
• You have access to complete financial forecast templates
• You get a complete financial forecast ready to be sent to your bank or investors
• You can easily track your actual financial performance against your financial forecast, and recalibrate your forecast as the year goes by
• You can create scenarios to stress test your forecast's main assumptions
• You can easily update your forecast as time goes by to maintain visibility on future cash flows
• You have a friendly support team on standby to assist you when you are stuck
• It’s cost-efficient and much cheaper than using an accountant or consultant (see below)

If you are interested in this type of solution, you can try our forecasting software for free by signing up here.

Hiring a financial consultant or chartered accountant

Hiring a consultant or chartered accountant is also an efficient way to get a professional car leasing company financial projection.

As you can imagine, this solution is much more expensive than using software. From experience, the creation of a simple financial forecast over three years (including a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement) is likely to start around £700 or $1,000 excluding taxes.

The indicative estimate above, is for a small business, and a forecast done as a one-off. Using a financial consultant or accountant to track your actuals vs. forecast and to keep your financial forecast up to date on a monthly or quarterly basis will naturally cost a lot more.

If you choose this solution, make sure your service provider has first-hand experience in your industry, so that they may challenge your assumptions and offer insights (as opposed to just taking your figures at face value to create the forecast’s financial statements).

Why not use a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets to build your car leasing company's financial forecast?

Creating an accurate and error-free car leasing company financial forecast on Excel (or any spreadsheet) is very technical and requires both a strong grasp of accounting principles and solid skills in financial modelling.

Most entrepreneurs lack the expertise required to create an accurate financial forecast using spreadsheet software like Excel or Google Sheets. As a result, it is unlikely anyone will trust your numbers.

The second reason is that it is inefficient. Building forecasts on spreadsheets was the only option in the 1990s and early 2000s, nowadays technology has advanced and software can do it much faster and much more accurately. 

This is why professional forecasters all use software. With the rise of AI, software is also becoming smarter at helping us detect mistakes in our forecasts and helping us analyse the numbers to make better decisions.

Finally, like everything with spreadsheets, tracking actuals vs. forecasts and updating your forecast as the year progresses is manual, tedious, error-prone, and time-consuming. Whereas financial forecasting software like The Business Plan Shop is built for this.

Use our financial forecast templates for inspiration

The Business Plan Shop has dozens of financial forecast examples available.

Our templates contain both a financial forecast and a written business plan which presents, in detail, the company, the team, the strategy, and the medium-term objectives.

Our templates are a great source of inspiration, whether you just want to see what a complete business plan looks like, or are looking for concrete examples of how you should model financial elements in your own forecast.

Takeaways

1. A financial forecast shows expected growth, profitability, and cash generation metrics for your car leasing company.
2. Tracking actuals vs. forecast and having an up-to-date financial forecast is key to maintaining visibility on your future cash flows.
3. Using financial forecasting software is the modern way of creating and maintaining financial projections.

We hope that this guide helped you gain a clearer perspective on the steps needed to create the financial forecast for a car leasing company. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• Financial forecast example
• How to project sales for a business?
• Financial forecast for a business idea

Know someone who runs a car leasing company? Share our business guide with them!