Financial forecasting with a profit and loss template

Key points

• Use financial forecasting forecast to make predictions over the coming financial year
• Have a clear expectation of your income, cost of goods sold, and expenses
• Get started with our profit and loss template

Our profit and loss template will help you with financial forecasting for the year ahead. Set yourself up for business success by having a clear expectation of how much you will make and the expenses you will incur during the coming 12 months.

Use our profit and loss template

Financial forecasting is used to predict profit and losses over the coming financial year.

Alongside your balance sheet and cash flow statement, financial forecasting is one of the key elements of setting up your business financially. 

Download our Profit and loss template (xls 1.5MB) to start your financial forecasting for the year ahead.

Begin by focusing on predictions for next month for each of the key sections: income, cost of goods sold and expenses. Then continue estimating your sales and expenses for the next six or 12 months.

Income

The first part of financial forecasting involves predicting sales.

Begin by focusing on next month:

• Enter your predicted sales for the upcoming month
• Add any sales returns you usually have
• Factor in any discounts to be applied

Continue inputting any additional income streams you may have. The template will automatically make the calculations for you, so enter each amount as a positive number.

Cost of goods sold

Next, enter your stock level at the start of the month and add stock purchases plus other costs associated with your goods. 

Input your predicted stock level for the end of the month. The template will calculate the estimated total cost of goods sold and gross profit for the month.

Expenses

The bottom half of the template deals with expenses – your selling, administrative and finance expenses. Navigate down the list entering all relevant expenses, which will be calculated by the template.

Input any interest expenses and hire purchase charges to calculate your profit before tax. Lastly, enter the estimated tax you’ll pay for the month and your net profit will be calculated at the bottom.

The last column will total all your monthly sales, expenses, interest and tax data into a half-year or annual amount. 

Lastly, calculate your likely expenses over the appropriate period of time.

Get started with our profit and loss template

Download our Profit and loss template (xls 1.5MB) to start your financial forecasting for the year ahead.