How to create a financial forecast for a fishing and boat equipment store?

Developing and maintaining an up-to-date financial forecast for your fishing and boat equipment store 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 fishing and boat equipment store 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 fishing and boat equipment store?

In order to prosper, your business needs to have visibility on what lies ahead and the right financial resources to grow. This is where having a financial forecast for your fishing and boat equipment store becomes handy.

Creating a fishing and boat equipment store financial forecast forces you to take stock of where your business stands and where you want it to go. 

Once you have clarity on the destination, you will need to draw up a plan to get there and assess what it means in terms of future profitability and cash flows for your fishing and boat equipment store.

Having this clear plan in place will give you the confidence needed to move forward with your business’s development. 

Having an up-to-date financial forecast for a fishing and boat equipment store is also useful if your trading environment worsens, as the forecast enables you to adjust to your new market conditions and anticipate any potential cash shortfall. 

Finally, your fishing and boat equipment store's financial projections will also help you secure financing, as banks and investors alike will want to see accurate projections before agreeing to finance your business.

What information is used as input to build a fishing and boat equipment store financial forecast?

A fishing and boat equipment store's financial forecast needs to be built on the right foundation: your assumptions. 

The data required to create your assumptions will depend on whether you are a new or existing fishing and boat equipment store.

If you are creating (or updating) the forecast of an existing fishing and boat equipment store, then your main inputs will be historical accounting data and operating metrics, and your team’s view on what to expect for the next three to five years.

If you are building financial projections for a new fishing and boat equipment store startup, you will need to rely on market research to form your go-to-market strategy and derive your sales forecast.

For a new venture, you will also need an itemised list of resources needed for the fishing and boat equipment store to operate, along with a list of equipment required to launch the venture (more on that below). 

Now that you understand what is needed, let’s have a look at what elements will make up your fishing and boat equipment store's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for a fishing and boat equipment store

From experience, it usually makes sense to start your fishing and boat equipment store's financial projection with the revenues forecast.

The inputs used to forecast your sales will include the historical trading data of your fishing and boat equipment store (which can be used as a starting point for existing businesses) and the data collected in your market research (which both new ventures and existing businesses need to project their sales forward).

Your fishing and boat equipment store's sales forecast can be broken down into two key estimates: 

• The average price 
• The number of monthly transactions

To assess these variables accurately, you will need to consider the following factors:

Once you have a sales forecast in place, the next step will be to work on your overhead budget. Let’s have a look at that now. 

The operating expenses for a fishing and boat equipment store

The next step is to estimate the costs you’ll have to incur to operate your fishing and boat equipment store.

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

But your fishing and boat equipment store'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 fishing and boat equipment store's specific circumstances.

What investments are needed to start or grow a fishing and boat equipment store?

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

For a fishing and boat equipment store, capital expenditures and initial working capital items could include:

Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the specificities of your fishing and boat equipment store.

The financing plan of your fishing and boat equipment store

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your fishing and boat equipment store 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 fishing and boat equipment store?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your fishing and boat equipment store's financial forecast.

The profit & loss forecast

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

A financially viable P&L statement for a fishing and boat equipment store 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

Your fishing and boat equipment store'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 fishing and boat equipment store'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 fishing and boat equipment store:

• 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 fishing and boat equipment store'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 fishing and boat equipment store'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 fishing and boat equipment store's financial projections?

Building a fishing and boat equipment store 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 fishing and boat equipment store'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

Outsourcing the creation of your fishing and boat equipment store financial forecast is another possible solution.

This will cost more than using software as you can expect as your price will have to cover the accountant’s time, software cost, and profit margin.

Price can vary greatly based on the complexity of your business. For a small business, from experience, a simple three-year financial forecast (including a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement) will start at around £700 or $1,000. 

Bear in mind that this is for forecasts produced at a single point in time, updating or tracking your forecast against actuals will cost extra. 

If you decide to outsource your forecasting:

• Make sure the professional has direct experience in your industry and is able to challenge your assumptions constructively. 
• Steer away from consultants using sectorial ratios to build their client’s financial forecasts (these projections are worthless for a small business).

Why not use a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets to build your fishing and boat equipment store's financial forecast?

Creating an accurate and error-free fishing and boat equipment store financial forecast with a spreadsheet is very technical and requires a deep knowledge of accounting and an understanding of financial modelling.

Very few business owners are financially savvy enough to be able to build a forecast themselves on Excel without making mistakes. 

Lenders and investors know this, which is why forecasts created on Excel by the business owner are often frowned upon. 

Having numbers one can trust is key when it comes to financial forecasting and to that end using software is much safer. 

Using financial forecasting software is also faster than using a spreadsheet, and, with the rise of artificial intelligence, software is also becoming smarter at helping us analyse the numbers to make smarter decisions.

Finally, like everything with spreadsheets, tracking actuals vs. forecasts and keeping your projections up to date as the year progresses is manual, tedious, and error-prone. Whereas financial projection software like The Business Plan Shop is built 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 fishing and boat equipment store, 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 fishing and boat equipment store

Takeaways

1. A financial projection shows 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 forecast up-to-date is the only way to maintain visibility on future cash flows.
3. Using financial forecasting software makes it easy to create and maintain up-to-date projections for your fishing and boat equipment store.

You have reached the end of our guide. We hope you now have a better understanding of how to create a financial forecast for a fishing and boat equipment store. Don't hesitate to contact our team if you have any questions or want to share your experience building forecasts!

Also on The Business Plan Shop

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

Know someone who runs or wants to start a fishing and boat equipment store? Share our financial projection guide with them!