How to create a financial forecast for an administrative support firm?

If you are serious about keeping visibility on your future cash flows, then you need to build and maintain a financial forecast for your administrative support firm.

Putting together an administrative support firm 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 administrative support firm. 

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 an administrative support firm?

The financial projections for your administrative support firm act as a financial blueprint to guide its growth with confidence and ensure its long-term financial viability. 

To create them, you will need to look at your business in detail - from sales to operating costs and investments - to assess how much profit it can generate in the years to come and what will be the associated cash flows.

During challenging market conditions, maintaining an up-to-date financial forecast enables early detection of potential financial shortfalls, allowing for timely adjustments or securing financing before facing a cash crisis. 

Your administrative support firm's financial forecast will also prove invaluable when seeking financing. Banks and investors will undoubtedly request a thorough examination of your financial figures, making precision and presentation essential.

What information is needed to build an administrative support 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 an administrative support 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 administrative support 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 administrative support 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 administrative support firm's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for an administrative support firm

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

The inputs used to forecast your sales will include the historical trading data of your administrative support 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 administrative support 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 an administrative support firm

Once you know what level of sales you can expect, you can start budgeting the expenses required to operate your administrative support firm on a daily basis.

Expenses normally vary based on how much revenue you anticipate (which is why, from experience, it is always better to start your forecast with the topline projection), and where your business is based. 

Operating expenses for an administrative support firm will include some of the following items:

This list will need to be tailored to the specificities of your administrative support firm, but should offer a good starting point for your budget.

What investments are needed to start or grow an administrative support firm?

Your administrative support firm 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 an administrative support firm, these could include:

Again, this list will need to be adjusted according to the size and ambitions of your administrative support firm.

The financing plan of your administrative support firm

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your administrative support 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 an administrative support firm?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your administrative support firm's financial forecast.

The projected profit & loss statement

The projected profit & loss shows how profitable your administrative support firm is likely to be in the years to come.

For your administrative support firm 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 administrative support firms, 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 administrative support firm'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 administrative support firm. 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 administrative support firm'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 administrative support firm:

• 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 administrative support firm'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 administrative support firm'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 administrative support firm's financial forecast?

Creating your administrative support firm'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 administrative support 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

Enlisting the help of a consultant or accountant is also a good way to obtain a professional administrative support firm 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 administrative support 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 administrative support 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 administrative support 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 forecast templates for inspiration

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

Our templates contain both a financial forecast and a written business plan which presents, in detail, the company, the team, the strategy, and the medium-term objectives.

Our templates are a great source of inspiration, whether you just want to see what a complete business plan looks like, or are looking for concrete examples of how you should model financial elements in your own forecast.

Takeaways

1. A financial forecast shows expected growth, profitability, and cash generation metrics for your administrative support firm.
2. Tracking actuals vs. forecast and having an up-to-date financial forecast is key to maintaining visibility on your future cash flows.
3. 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 an administrative support firm. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

Also on The Business Plan Shop

• Financial forecast example
• How to project revenues for a business?
• Sample financial forecast for business idea

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