How to create a financial forecast for a pheasant farm?
If you are serious about keeping visibility on your future cash flows, then you need to build and maintain a financial forecast for your pheasant farm.
Putting together a pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm.
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 pheasant farm?
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 pheasant farm becomes handy.
Creating a pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm.
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 pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm financial forecast?
A pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm, 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 pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm's financial forecast.
The sales forecast for a pheasant farm
The sales forecast, also called topline projection, is normally where you will start when building your pheasant farm 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 pheasant farms), and consider the elements below:
- The availability of pheasants in the market can greatly affect the average price of your pheasants. If there is a high demand for pheasants but a limited supply, you may be able to sell your birds at a higher price. However, if there is an oversupply of pheasants, the market price may decrease, resulting in lower profits.
- The economic conditions in your area or region can also impact the demand for pheasants and ultimately affect your average price. If the economy is thriving and people have more disposable income, they may be more likely to purchase pheasants for recreational purposes or for consumption. On the other hand, during an economic downturn, customers may be more hesitant to spend money on luxury items like pheasants.
- The quality of your pheasants can also have a significant impact on your average price. Customers are willing to pay more for healthy, well-kept birds that are of a desirable age and size. If you have a reputation for producing high-quality pheasants, you may be able to charge a premium price and attract more customers.
- The competition in your area can also affect your average price. If you are the only pheasant farm in the area, you may have more control over the price of your birds. However, if there are multiple pheasant farms in close proximity, you may need to adjust your prices to remain competitive and attract customers.
- The hunting regulations in your state or country can also impact the demand for pheasants and therefore affect your average price. For example, if there are stricter regulations on hunting pheasants or limits on the number of birds that can be taken, the demand for your pheasants may increase, allowing you to charge a higher price.
After the sales forecast comes the operating expenses budget, which we will now look into in more detail.
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 pheasant farm
The next step is to estimate the expenses needed to run your pheasant 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 pheasant farm's operating expenses should include the following items at a minimum:
- Pheasant feed: This includes the cost of purchasing and maintaining a steady supply of high-quality feed for your pheasants. You may also need to factor in the cost of specialized feed for different stages of growth or specific dietary requirements.
- Medication and veterinary expenses: Just like any other animal, pheasants may need medical care from time to time. This can include routine check-ups, vaccinations, and treatment for any illnesses or injuries.
- Labor costs: Running a pheasant farm will require a team of skilled workers to help with tasks such as feeding, cleaning, and maintenance. You will need to budget for salaries, benefits, and any other labor-related expenses.
- Electricity and heating: Pheasants need a warm and comfortable environment to thrive. You will need to cover the cost of electricity for heat lamps, incubators, and other equipment, as well as heating for the pheasant housing and other farm buildings.
- Property rent or mortgage: If you do not own the land where your pheasant farm is located, you will need to factor in the cost of rent or mortgage payments.
- Packaging and shipping materials: If you plan on selling pheasants or their products, you will need to budget for the cost of packaging materials and shipping fees.
- Marketing and advertising: To attract customers and promote your pheasant farm, you may need to invest in marketing and advertising efforts such as creating a website, attending trade shows, or placing ads in relevant publications.
- Equipment maintenance and repairs: Your pheasant farm will likely require various equipment, such as incubators, brooders, and feeders. You will need to budget for regular maintenance and any unexpected repairs.
- Office supplies: Running a pheasant farm also involves administrative tasks such as bookkeeping, record-keeping, and communication. You will need to purchase office supplies such as paper, printer ink, and envelopes.
- Legal fees: As a business owner, you may need to seek legal advice or assistance with contracts, permits, and other legal matters. You will need to budget for the cost of these services.
- Accounting fees: It is essential to keep accurate and organized financial records for your pheasant farm. You may need to hire an accountant to help with tax preparation, payroll, and other financial tasks.
- Insurance: To protect your pheasant farm from potential risks and liabilities, you will need to purchase insurance coverage. This can include property insurance, liability insurance, and worker's compensation insurance.
- Software licenses: In today's digital age, you may need to invest in software and technology to manage your pheasant farm efficiently. This can include accounting software, record-keeping software, and farm management software.
- Banking fees: As a business owner, you will likely have various banking needs, such as checking accounts, credit cards, and loans. You will need to budget for any associated fees, such as transaction fees and interest charges.
- Training and education: To stay updated on industry trends and best practices, you may need to attend conferences, workshops, or other educational events. You will need to budget for the cost of registration, travel, and accommodation.
This list is, of course, not exhaustive, and you'll have to adapt it according to your precise business model and size. A small pheasant farm might not have the same level of expenditure as a larger one, for example.
What investments are needed to start or grow a pheasant farm?
Your pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm, these could include:
- Housing and Infrastructure: This includes the construction or renovation of buildings and structures for housing the pheasants, such as barns, coops, and fencing. It also includes the installation of necessary infrastructure such as water and electricity systems.
- Equipment and Machinery: Pheasant farms require specific equipment and machinery for tasks such as feeding, egg collection, and predator control. This can include items such as feeders, incubators, and traps.
- Breeding Stock: The purchase of breeding stock is a major capital expenditure for a pheasant farm. This includes the cost of acquiring mature birds for breeding, as well as the cost of hatching eggs and raising chicks.
- Land Acquisition: If you are starting a pheasant farm from scratch, you may need to purchase land for your operation. This can be a significant capital expenditure, but is necessary for long-term success.
- Vehicles and Transportation: Pheasant farms often require the use of vehicles for tasks such as delivering birds to customers or transporting feed and supplies. This can include the purchase of trucks, trailers, and other necessary vehicles.
Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the size and ambitions of your pheasant farm.
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 pheasant farm
The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your pheasant 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 pheasant farm?
Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm will look different than for a startup.
The projected balance sheet
The projected balance sheet gives an overview of your pheasant 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 pheasant 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 projected cash flow statement
A projected cash flow statement for a pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm's financial projections?
Building a pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm'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 pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm's financial forecast?
Creating an accurate and error-free pheasant farm 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 pheasant farm, 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
- 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.
- Tracking actuals vs. forecast and keeping your financial projections up-to-date is the only way to get a view on what your pheasant farm future cash flows may look like.
- 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 pheasant farm, we hope you found it useful. Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to share your feedback or 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
- Example of financial forecast
- How to create a sales forecast for a business?
- Example of financial forecast for business idea
Know someone who owns or is thinking of starting a pheasant farm? Share our forecasting guide with them!
Founder & CEO at The Business Plan Shop Ltd
