How to create a financial forecast for a magazine publishing firm?

Creating a financial forecast for your magazine publishing firm, 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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm?

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

A financial plan for a magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm, 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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm, 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 magazine publishing firm's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for a magazine publishing firm

From experience, it usually makes sense to start your magazine publishing firm's financial projection with the revenues forecast.

The inputs used to forecast your sales will include the historical trading data of your magazine publishing firm (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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm

The next step is to estimate the costs you’ll have to incur to operate your magazine publishing firm.

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

But your magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm's specific circumstances.

What investments are needed to start or grow a magazine publishing firm?

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

For a magazine publishing firm, capital expenditures and initial working capital items could include:

Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the specificities of your magazine publishing firm.

The financing plan of your magazine publishing firm

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm will look different than for a startup.

The projected balance sheet

Your magazine publishing firm's projected balance sheet provides a snapshot of your business’s financial position at year-end.

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

• Assets: represent what the business possesses including cash, equipment, and accounts receivable (money owed by clients).
• Liabilities: represent funds advanced to the business by lenders and other creditors. They include accounts payable (money owed to suppliers), taxes payable and loans from banks and financial institutions.
• 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 projected cash flow statement

A projected cash flow statement for a magazine publishing firm is used to show how much cash the business is generating or consuming.

The cash flow forecast is usually organised by nature to show three key metrics:

• The operating cash flow: do the core business activities generate or consume cash?
• The investing cash flow: how much is the business investing in long-term assets (this is usually compared to the level of fixed assets on the balance sheet to assess whether the business is regularly maintaining and renewing its equipment)?
• The financing cash flow: is the business raising new financing or repaying financiers (debt repayment, dividends)?

Cash is king and keeping an eye on future cash flows is imperative for running a successful business. Therefore, you should pay close attention to your magazine publishing firm's cash flow forecast.

If you are trying to secure financing, note that it is customary to provide both yearly and monthly cash flow forecasts in a financial plan - so that the reader can analyze seasonal variation and ensure the magazine publishing firm is appropriately capitalised.

Which tool should you use to create your magazine publishing firm's financial projections?

Building a magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm'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 magazine publishing firm, 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 magazine publishing firm

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 magazine publishing firm 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 magazine publishing firm, 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 project revenues for a business?
• Financial forecast template for a business idea

Know someone who owns or is thinking of starting a magazine publishing firm? Share our forecasting guide with them!