How to create a financial forecast for an exhibition design agency?

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

Putting together an exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency. 

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 exhibition design agency?

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 exhibition design agency becomes handy.

Creating an exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency.

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 an exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency'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 an exhibition design agency financial forecast?

A exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency, 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 an exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency's financial forecast.

The sales forecast for an exhibition design agency

The sales forecast, also called topline projection, is normally where you will start when building your exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agencies), and consider the elements below:

After the sales forecast comes the operating expenses budget, which we will now look into in more detail.

The operating expenses for an exhibition design agency

The next step is to estimate the costs you’ll have to incur to operate your exhibition design agency.

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

But your exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency's specific circumstances.

What investments are needed to start or grow an exhibition design agency?

Creating and expanding an exhibition design agency also requires investments which you need to factor into your financial forecast.

Capital expenditures and initial working capital items for an exhibition design agency could include elements such as:

Again, this list is not exhaustive and will need to be adjusted according to the circumstances of your exhibition design agency.

The financing plan of your exhibition design agency

The next step in the creation of your financial forecast for your exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency?

Now let's have a look at the main output tables of your exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency will look different than for a startup.

The projected balance sheet

Your exhibition design agency'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 cash flow projection

The cash flow forecast of your exhibition design agency will show how much cash the business is expected to generate or consume over the next three to five years.

There are multiple ways of presenting a cash flow forecast but from experience, it is better to organise it by nature in order to clearly show these elements:

• Operating cash flow: how much cash is generated by the exhibition design agency's operations
• Investing cash flow: what is the business investing to expand or maintain its equipment 
• Financing cash flow: is the business raising additional funds or repaying financiers (debt repayment, dividends)

Your cash flow forecast is the most important element of your overall financial projection and that’s where you should focus your attention to ensure that your exhibition design agency is adequately funded.

Note: if you are preparing a financial forecast in order to try to secure funding, you will need to include both a yearly and monthly cash flow forecast in your exhibition design agency's financial plan. 

Which tool should you use to create your exhibition design agency's financial forecast?

Creating your exhibition design agency's financial forecast may sound fairly daunting, but the good news is that there are several ways to go about it.

Using online financial projection software to build your exhibition design agency's forecast

The modern and easiest way to build a forecast is to use professional financial projection 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 exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency 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 exhibition design agency'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 exhibition design agency.
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 exhibition design agency. 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?
• Financial forecast template for a business idea

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