Financial Statements Templates

Financial statements (such as those included in these Financial Statements Templates) have been developed over the centuries to answer different questions about an organization’s past, current, and future performance. Typical questions answered by financial statements include:

• Are you making money or losing money?
• How much money do you need to start your business and achieve profitability?
• Are your assets greater than your liabilities, and if so how liquid are they?
• When you can take cash out of the business?

In this download, I am going to briefly describe the three main financial statements (all included in these financial statements templates) you will need to plan, finance, and operate your business. These are the Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, and Cash Flow Statement.

Financial Statements should be considered as the thermometer, scoreboard or report card of your business. I strongly urge you to generate preliminary estimates of your company’s financial performance by using these tools, and the sooner you start this process the better. Accurate and current Financial Statements will help you establish parameters for your business and let you analyze alternative approaches. They will also help you determine how much capital you need and what the best terms are for securing such capital. For example you need to balance pricing, margins, competition, introductory offers and marketing requirements, all of which may be reflected in your financial forecasts. Preliminary Financial Statements will help understand and develop appropriate tradeoffs with financial partners and business associates. As your business begins to grown, your Financial Statements will provide you the true measurement of your performance, results, and value. They can also serve to suggest what types of adjustments you might make to improve your performance and value.