UK General Cost Breakdown/Audit for a beginner

[Jason94M]

Hey all,

I'm opening a business with a few friends. IMO It's a great idea and it's hit it off with the public & potential investors.

Everything was going smoothly until an investor asked how exactly we were going to spend the money. So I opened up an Excel spreadsheet and tried remembering back to my old economics class to see what I could put together.

So we're very clear on what's being spent on what... E.g 20% of the budget on X, 50% on Y and 30% on Z. I broke down these costs to what I found reasonable and sent off the document to the investor.

I just got an email back asking for the spreadsheet... it's like they didn't even recieve it in the first place. Now I double checked and I did send it so I'm assuming the standard was pretty poor given the overall projected revenue and they must have assumed that wasn't the 'real' spreadsheet. I don't want to say that was the spreadsheet in case it ruins the whole deal with them finding me incompetent.

I've tried grabbing an Accountant on short notice but can't pin one down (deadline is tomorrow) without paying extortionate prices since I'm cash strapped (the business is extremely low equity but is attracting investment because the idea seems to be great) so we've all got together again and are gonna crack on with a new spreadsheet.

This time we're going to try to break costs down even more. Other than breaking it down can anybody give me some tips from experience? What makes a good spreadsheet and a bad spreadsheet? Any headers I should include other than total cost, sub total, type of cost etc?

Naturally it goes without saying the second the business has some funds flowing through it we're grabbing a dedicated Accountant.

Given the value of the business may effect the standard of the spreadsheet the investor is putting in £800,000.

Cheers in advance.

 

[Steve-LevelUp]

Given the short notice, I think the quality of the spreadsheet will be limited. On the worksheet, did you just use percentages, or real dollars? I think you should prepare a 3 year financial forecast, by month, using detailed revenue projections (one that you can justify) and outline your expenses by category, using real dollars (eg, rent, salaries, etc) each one having a reasonable breakdown or justification. This will show the investors the startup phase, how much is losses you will incur until you become profitable and how long it will take to recover those losses. This will also show them if you are able to maintain the debt (is in interest) and give them an idea of any potential exit plan they might have.

I hope that helps.