What Are Financial Projections And How Can E-invoicing Help

A financial projection is an educated guess about a company’s financial standings at a certain point in the future.

Making accurate financial predictions can be somewhat of a challenge especially for novice enterprises.

With experience, however, one can gain the insight needed to come up with more realistic estimations. 

The more realistic your financial predictions, the better your chances are to increase your business outreach.

With the right software and invoicing systems, you can make a considerable difference for your business’s scalability in the near future.

Financial Projections Explained

These estimations are an important element of your business plan. They make valuable predictions about your company’s expected growth and prospective revenue streams.

Small business projections can help owners set new targets, configure newer directions, and devise strategies for expansion. Financial predictions are also useful when enterprises are looking for investors. 

Calculated risks provide owners insight into how critically a business may need external investments.

By estimating revenue growth and predicting success, these estimations directly impact the valuation of a business.

Financial projections can be classified into two types. 

• Short-Term Projections: These refer to estimations that are made on a month-by-month basis and account for the first year of your business’s growth
• Medium-Term Projections: These refer to estimations that account for your business’s standings over the next three years. These are broken down on an annual basis

Projections Vs Forecasting: What Is The Difference?

One might be tempted to think of one as a synonym for the other, but there are subtle differences between the two.

Financial forecasting is a prospective statement that estimates a probable financial situation based on the most likely course of action that the business may take.

This makes them more probable. Businesses generally refer to financial forecasts when they are onboarding new investors.

Financial projections are also prospective financial statements but, instead of solely relying on the most probable market conditions, it also includes some hypothetical assumptions. For this reason, the forecasts are more likely to happen.

While predictions do help with the future course of the investment, businesses prefer to use these for internal understanding and formulating decisions.

How To Prepare Financial Projections

Set up the right budget by taking the following steps.

1). Start With A Sales Forecast

This is a spreadsheet covering your business’ finances. If you’re an established business then it covers the next three years. If you’re a business just starting out then it covers just the first year.

The spreadsheet must separately list the sale units, prices, cost of sales, gross income, and the gross margin. For each line of revenue, it’ll compare past and current sales. 

2). Budget Expenses

Next list down the fixed and variable costs involved in making successful sales. Fixed costs are expenses that remain the same over a long period of time such as rent, payroll, and so forth.

Variable costs, involving marketing and seasonal investments, may change over time.

3). Assess Your Cash-flow

You can now make an educated guess about the money that’ll be flowing in and out of your business. Established companies have their previous financial statements to draw on.

New businesses will have to estimate the cash-flow by keeping in mind the company budget and closely scrutinized market trends.

They must also take into account financial inconveniences stemming from delayed invoice payments, which is more than probable.

4). Income Projection

This is a financial statement for the next three years, broken down annually. Your budget analysis and cash flow forecasts will help to devise realistic income predictions.

Accurate invoice calculations are important. Businesses generally get paid up to 80% of invoices within time, but better billing software can make a difference.

5). Break Even Projections

Your business breaks even when the revenue overtakes the liabilities, investments, and interests.

Devising a solid financial plan can help you estimate the time in the future when this overtake becomes possible.

Why Accuracy Counts

Accuracy is important, especially for small business projections given this is what helps derive a success-inducing plan. You’ll be required to base assumptions on previous invoices and records.

Your invoices and recordkeeping must be as meticulous as possible. 

E-invoicing can be invaluable in carrying out this task. These cloud-based software offerings organize documents so you’re effortlessly able to sift through paid and unpaid invoices. You can download and dispatch them to the clients at will.

While the software takes care of recordkeeping, you can occupy yourself with other important tasks at hand.