Detailing Expenses in Your Small Business Plan

A Home Business Article Contributed by Jenni Mckinney

Catching up Your Small Business Plan

To bring your small business plan to the stage where you are ready to detail expenses, you will need to perform some preliminary work first. The cover page of your business plan should include the name of your company, your address, and all your pertinent contact numbers, including fax, telephone, and cell phone. You should also include your web site address. The second page should be a table of contents.

The third page should start the body of your small business plan, and is the first section with real meat. This is your executive summary section, which should actually be a condensed narrative of your entire business plan and can range from a few paragraphs to a few pages.

The second section of your business plan should be a business description, which should detail the type of legal entity your business has been structured into (sole proprietor, partnership, corporation, etc.), a biography of the work history and related skills of each of the founding members, and a brief history of the company itself. How was the business idea first conceived and by whom? How was the business started? How has it grown up to now?

The third section of your business plan should detail the offerings of your business, whether they are goods or services. How will they be offered and to whom? How will they be priced? How will your small business make a profit? The fourth section of your small business plan should detail your marketing and advertising strategy.

This should include a brief summary of the market research you've been able to complete as well as a list of all the ways you plan to advertise your small business, what these campaigns will cost, and how effective you believe they will be. Once these sections are complete, you are ready to move on to the fifth section.

Section Five of Your Small Business Plan: Expenses

Section five of your small business plan should deal first with the expenses you will incur as a result of equipment you will need to purchase. Of course, you will have to have a computer and peripherals, including a printer, a fax machine, and perhaps a scanner. You will have to have business office furniture, including a desk, a chair, and a lamp, at the least. You may have to buy accounting software or inventory software.

Whatever equipment you will definitely need to begin your small business should be outlined in this portion of your plan. In addition, you will need to calculate the expenses you'll incur as a result of producing your goods or services, including contractor fees, gas and vehicle expenses, etc.

Section Six of Your Small Business Plan: Financing

This section should detail how you will finance your business plans. Typically, you will be planning on getting a small business loan from a bank. However, you may want or need to look in other areas for cash, including borrowing from friends and family, using your personal credit cards, asking customers to prepay, or getting cash from venture capitalists. However you decide to do it, you should detail your plans in your business plan and constantly monitor your progress thereby.