How to create a financial forecast for a crustacean farm?

Developing and maintaining an up-to-date financial forecast for your crustacean farm is key in order to maintain visibility on your business’s future cash flows. 

If you feel overwhelmed at the thought of putting together a crustacean farm financial forecast then don’t worry as this guide is here to help you.

We'll cover everything from: the main objectives of a financial forecast, the data you need to gather before starting, to the tables that compose it, and the tools that will help you create and maintain your forecast efficiently.

Let's get started!

Why create and maintain a financial forecast for a crustacean farm?

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

A financial plan for a crustacean farm 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 crustacean farm 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 crustacean farm'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 crustacean farm 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 crustacean farm, 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 crustacean farm 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 crustacean farm, 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 crustacean farm's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for a crustacean farm

From experience, it is usually best to start creating your crustacean farm financial forecast by your sales forecast.

To create an accurate sales forecast for your crustacean farm, you will have to rely on the data collected in your market research, or if you're running an existing crustacean farm, the historical data of the business, to estimate two key variables: 

• The average price 
• The number of monthly transactions

To get there, you will need to consider the following factors:

Once you have an idea of what your future sales will look like, it will be time to work on your overhead budget. Let’s see what this entails.

The operating expenses for a crustacean farm

The next step is to estimate the expenses needed to run your crustacean farm on a day-to-day basis.

These will vary based on the level of sales expected, and the location and size of your business. 

But your crustacean farm's operating expenses should include the following items at a minimum:

This list is, of course, not exhaustive, and you'll have to adapt it according to your precise business model and size. A small crustacean farm might not have the same level of expenditure as a larger one, for example.

What investments are needed to start or grow a crustacean farm?

Creating and expanding a crustacean farm also requires investments which you need to factor into your financial forecast.

Capital expenditures and initial working capital items for a crustacean farm could include elements such as:

Again, this list is not exhaustive and will need to be adjusted according to the circumstances of your crustacean farm.

The financing plan of your crustacean farm

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your crustacean farm 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 crustacean farm?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your crustacean farm's financial forecast.

The profit & loss forecast

The forecasted profit & loss statement will enable you to visualise your crustacean farm's expected growth and profitability over the next three to five years.

A financially viable P&L statement for a crustacean farm should normally show:

• Sales growing above inflation
• Stable or expanding (ideally) profit margins
• A net profit

This will of course depend on the stage of your business: a new venture might be loss-making until it reaches its breakeven point in year 2 or 3, for example.

The projected balance sheet

The projected balance sheet gives an overview of your crustacean farm's financial structure at the end of the financial year.

It is composed of three categories of items: assets, liabilities and equity:

• Assets: are what the business possesses and uses to produce cash flows. It includes resources such as cash, buildings, equipment, and accounts receivable (money owed by clients).
• Liabilities: are the debts of your crustacean farm. They include accounts payable (money owed to suppliers), taxes due and bank loans.
• Equity: is the combination of what has been invested by the business owners and the cumulative profits 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 crustacean farm'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 crustacean farm:

• 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 crustacean farm'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 crustacean farm'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 crustacean farm's financial forecast?

Creating your crustacean farm's financial forecast may sound fairly daunting, but the good news is that there are several ways to go about it.

Using online financial forecasting software to build your crustacean farm's projections

The modern and easiest way is to use an online financial forecasting tool 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 projection software for free by signing up here.

Calling in a financial consultant or chartered accountant

Enlisting the help of a consultant or accountant is also a good way to obtain a professional crustacean farm financial forecast.

The downside of this solution is its cost. From experience, obtaining a simple financial forecast over three years (including a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement) is likely to cost a minimum of £700 or $1,000.

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

If you opt for this solution, make sure your accountant has in-depth knowledge of your industry, so that they may challenge your figures and offer insights (as opposed to just taking your assumptions at face value to create the forecast).

Why not use a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets to build your crustacean farm's financial forecast?

You and your financial partners need numbers you can trust. Unless you have studied finance or accounting, creating a trustworthy and error-free crustacean farm financial forecast on a spreadsheet is likely to prove challenging.

Financial modelling is very technical by nature and requires a solid grasp of accounting principles to be done without errors. This means that using spreadsheet software like Excel or Google Sheets to create accurate financial forecasts is out of reach for most business owners.

Creating forecasts in Excel is also inefficient nowadays:

• Software has advanced to the point where forecasting can be done much faster and more accurately than manually on a spreadsheet.
• With artificial intelligence, the software is capable of detecting mistakes and helping decision-making.

Spreadsheets are versatile tools but they are not tailor-made for reporting. Importing your crustacean farm's accounting data in Excel to track actual vs. forecast is incredibly manual and tedious (and so is keeping forecasts up to date). It is much faster to use dedicated financial planning tools like The Business Plan Shop which are built specially for this.

Use our financial projection templates for inspiration

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

Our examples contain a complete business plan with a financial forecast and a written presentation of the company, the team, the strategy, and the medium-term objectives.

Whether you are just starting out or already have your own crustacean farm, looking at our financial forecast template is a good way to:

• Understand what a complete business plan should look like
• Understand how you should model financial items for your crustacean farm

Takeaways

1. Having a financial forecast enables you to visualise the expected growth, profitability, and cash generation for your business over the next three to five years.
2. Tracking actuals vs. forecast and keeping your financial projections up-to-date is the only way to get a view on what your crustacean farm future cash flows may look like.
3. Using financial forecasting software is the mordern and easy way to create and maintain your forecasts.

This is the end of our guide on how to build the financial forecast for a crustacean farm, we hope you found it useful. Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to share your feedback or have any questions.

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• Example of financial forecast
• How to create a turnover forecast for a business?
• Example of financial forecast for business idea

Know someone who owns or is thinking of starting a crustacean farm? Share our forecasting guide with them!