Welcome! Here’s a super quick overview of what’s inside the model and how it works. The financial model consists of eight easy tabs in total:
1. Assumptions: Input all of your startup assumptions here.
- The assumptions tab drives everything else in the model.
- The types of assumptions and how they are connected together will be customised to match the description of your business. There will be sections for winning customers, earning revenues, people and costs, and fundraising. More complex models may have other types too.
- Numbers and dates in blue font with a white background are where you enter your assumptions, you can change those values as you develop your plan.
- Anything written in gray font is for information only, and you can leave it alone.
2. Dashboard: The summary dashboard is to help you understand your business at a glance.
- Don’t type anything here, all data on this sheet is automatically calculated.
- You can copy paste relevant graphs from here into your pitch deck.
3. P&L: This is your profit and loss statement. From left to right, you’ll find your Annual results and Monthly Results. From top to bottom, you’ll find your Forecast and Actuals.
- Click the + signs on the left to show or hide more detailed information (where it exists)
- Input your Actual results by scrolling down to the Actuals section and then scrolling right to Monthly Results. Look for the blue area, then as each month ends, boxes with a white background appear, and these are where you enter your actual results. In the example above, we are in March, so you can enter actuals for January & February.
4. Cash: This is your cashflow statement. From left to right, you’ll find your Annual results and Monthly Results. From top to bottom, you’ll find your Forecast and Actuals.
- Works the same way as the KPIs and P&L sheet (e.g. with + signs and a single actual row for your cash balance)
5. Balance: This is your balance sheet. From left to right, you’ll find your Annual results and Monthly Results. From top to bottom, you’ll find your Forecast and Actuals.
- Works the same way as the P&L, and Cash sheet (e.g. with + signs but no Actuals)
6. Other Metrics: These are all the metrics that are non-financial numbers, like # customers, # orders, etcetera – depending on your industry.
- Works the same way as the P&L, & Cash Flow sheet (e.g. with + signs and Actuals)
7. Help: This is where you can find the most popular articles from our Help Center
8. Formulas: This is where the calculations are done to turn your assumptions into results and charts. You don’t need to do anything here, but you can take a look if you want to see how a particular section works.
So to use your model, you will input values in the Assumptions sheet, the Formulas sheet will work out the impact of every assumption, and the results flow into the Dashboard and your financial statements sheets (e.g. P&L, Cash, Balance).