How to create a financial forecast for a historical site management company?

Creating a financial forecast for your historical site management company, and ensuring it stays up to date, is the only way to maintain visibility on future cash flows.
This might sound complex, but with the right guidance and tools, creating an accurate financial forecast for your historical site management company is not that hard.
In this guide, we'll cover everything from the main goal of a financial projection, the data you need as input, to the tables that compose it, and the tools that can help you build a forecast efficiently.
Without further ado, let us begin!
Why create and maintain a financial forecast for a historical site management company?
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 historical site management company becomes handy.
Creating a historical site management company 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 historical site management company.
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 historical site management company 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 historical site management company'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.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

What information is used as input to build a historical site management company financial forecast?
A historical site management company's financial forecast is only as good as the inputs used to build it.
If you are creating (or updating) the forecast of an existing historical site management company, then you mostly need your accounting information, key historical operating non-financial data, and your team’s input on what to expect for the coming years.
If you are building financial projections for a historical site management company startup, you will need to have done your research and have a clear picture of your competitive environment and go-to-market strategy so that you can forecast sales accurately.
For a new venture, you will also need a precise list of the resources needed to keep the historical site management company running on a day-to-day basis and a list of the equipment and expenditures required to start the business (more on that later).
Let's now take a closer look at the elements that make up your historical site management company's financial forecast.
The sales forecast for a historical site management company
From experience, it usually makes sense to start your historical site management company's financial projection with the revenues forecast.
The inputs used to forecast your sales will include the historical trading data of your historical site management company (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 historical site management company'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:
- Location: The location of your historical site can greatly impact the average price and number of monthly transactions. If your site is in a popular tourist destination or has a high historical significance, you may be able to charge a higher price and attract more visitors, resulting in higher transaction numbers.
- Seasonality: The seasonality of your business can also affect the average price and number of monthly transactions. In peak tourist seasons, you may be able to charge higher prices and see an increase in transaction numbers. However, in off-peak seasons, you may need to lower prices to attract visitors and may see a decrease in transaction numbers.
- Competition: The level of competition in your area can impact your business's average price and transaction numbers. If you have a lot of competitors offering similar historical sites, you may need to lower your prices to stay competitive and attract visitors. On the other hand, if you have a unique historical site with little competition, you may be able to charge higher prices and see an increase in transactions.
- Infrastructure: The condition and accessibility of your historical site can also affect your business's average price and transaction numbers. If your site is well-maintained and easily accessible, visitors may be willing to pay a higher price and you may see higher transaction numbers. However, if your site is difficult to access or in poor condition, it may be harder to attract visitors and you may need to lower prices to remain competitive.
- Special Events: Hosting special events or exhibitions at your historical site can impact your average price and transaction numbers. These events can attract more visitors and allow you to charge higher prices, resulting in an increase in transactions. However, the cost of hosting these events must also be considered in your pricing strategy.
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.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

The operating expenses for a historical site management company
The next step is to estimate the costs you’ll have to incur to operate your historical site management company.
These will vary based on where your business is located, and its overall size (level of sales, personnel, etc.).
But your historical site management company's operating expenses should normally include the following items:
- Staff Costs: This includes salaries, benefits, and training for your employees. As a historical site management company, you will need a team of knowledgeable and passionate staff to maintain and manage the site.
- Accountancy Fees: To ensure the financial health of your company, you will need to hire an accountant to handle your bookkeeping, taxes, and financial statements.
- Insurance Costs: As a historical site management company, you will have unique insurance needs to cover the site, artifacts, and any potential liability risks.
- Software Licences: You will need to invest in specialized software to manage ticket sales, reservations, and inventory for your gift shop.
- Banking Fees: To manage your company's finances, you will need to pay for banking services such as account maintenance, ATM fees, and wire transfers.
- Marketing and Advertising: To attract visitors to your historical site, you will need to invest in marketing and advertising efforts, such as social media ads, print ads, and collaborations with local tourism boards.
- Maintenance and Repairs: As a historical site management company, it is your responsibility to ensure the site is well-maintained and any necessary repairs are made to keep it safe for visitors.
- Utilities: This includes the cost of electricity, water, and other utilities needed to operate your historical site.
- Professional Development: It is important to invest in your staff's professional development to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to provide an exceptional experience for visitors.
- Security: To protect the site and its artifacts, you may need to hire security personnel or invest in security systems and equipment.
- Office Supplies: This includes the cost of necessary office supplies such as paper, printer ink, and pens for your daily operations.
- Legal Fees: As a historical site management company, you may need to consult with lawyers for contracts, permits, and any legal issues that may arise.
- Transportation: This includes the cost of transporting artifacts, supplies, and staff for off-site events or exhibitions.
- Waste Management: To maintain a clean and environmentally-friendly site, you will need to invest in waste management services.
- Training and Education Programs: As a historical site management company, it is important to offer educational programs for visitors and staff to learn about the site's history and significance.
This list is not exhaustive by any means, and will need to be tailored to your historical site management company's specific circumstances.
What investments are needed to start or grow a historical site management company?
Your historical site management company financial forecast will also need to include the capital expenditures (aka investments in plain English) and initial working capital items required for the creation or development of your business.
For a historical site management company, these could include:
- Renovation and Restoration: As a historical site management company, you may need to invest in the renovation and restoration of the site's buildings, structures, and artifacts. This could include repairing or replacing damaged or deteriorating elements, restoring historical features, and ensuring compliance with preservation guidelines.
- Visitor Center and Exhibits: A visitor center is an essential component of a historical site, providing information, tickets, and amenities for visitors. You may also need to invest in creating or updating exhibits to enhance the visitor experience and educate them about the site's history.
- Equipment and Technology: Maintaining and managing a historical site often requires specialized equipment and technology. This could include items such as preservation tools, security systems, and audiovisual equipment for guided tours or educational programs.
- Landscaping and Grounds Maintenance: The exterior appearance of a historical site is just as important as the interior, and maintaining the grounds and landscaping is crucial to preserving the site's historical integrity. This could include investing in lawn care, gardening, and tree maintenance services.
- Infrastructure and Utilities: As with any property, a historical site needs to have a functioning infrastructure and utilities to operate effectively. This could include investing in upgrades or repairs to plumbing, electrical, and heating systems to ensure the site is safe and comfortable for visitors.
Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the size and ambitions of your historical site management company.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

The financing plan of your historical site management company
The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your historical site management 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 historical site management company?
Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your historical site management company's financial forecast.
The projected profit & loss statement
The projected profit & loss shows how profitable your historical site management company is likely to be in the years to come.

For your historical site management company to be financially viable, your projected P&L should ideally show:
- Sales growing above inflation (the higher the better)
- Profit margins which are stable or expanding (the higher the better)
- A net profit at the end of each financial year (the higher the better)
This is for established historical site management companies, there is some leniency for startups which will have numbers that will look a bit different than existing businesses.
The projected balance sheet
The projected balance sheet gives an overview of your historical site management company'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 historical site management company. 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 historical site management 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 historical site management 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 historical site management 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 historical site management company's financial plan - so that banks or investors can assess seasonal variation and ensure your business is appropriately capitalised.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

Which tool should you use to create your historical site management company's financial projections?
Building a historical site management 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 historical site management 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.
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 historical site management company 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 historical site management company's financial forecast?
Creating an accurate and error-free historical site management company 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.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

Use our financial projection templates for inspiration
The Business Plan Shop has dozens of financial forecasting templates available.
Our examples contain both the financial forecast, and a written business plan which presents, in detail, the company, the team, the strategy, and the medium-term objectives.
Whether you are just starting out or already have your own historical site management company, looking at our template is always a good way to get ideas on how to model financial items and what to write when creating a business plan to secure funding.

Takeaways
- A financial forecast shows expected growth, profitability, and cash generation metrics for your historical site management company.
- Tracking actuals vs. forecast and having an up-to-date financial forecast is key to maintaining visibility on your future cash flows.
- 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 historical site management company. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast to assess the potential profitability of your projects, and write a business plan that’ll wow investors.

Also on The Business Plan Shop
- Financial forecast example
- Financial forecast template for a business idea
- How to project revenues for a business?
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