Small Business Plan Template

This is a business plan template with a financial spreadsheet, designed for first-time owners of a small local or online business: a cafe, a salon, a cleaning or trade business, an online shop. You fill in ten sections, type your numbers into the spreadsheet, and end up with a plan of about 10 to 14 pages that you can hand to a bank, a landlord or a partner.

Many business plan templates are slide decks, or a list of headings with nothing under them. This one is a written plan. Every section has a one-page guide in plain words, a finished example to copy from, and a blank page for yours. The numbers come from a spreadsheet that is already built, so you do not have to make one.

How it works

1. Read three pages. The whole plan on one page, who reads a plan and what they look for, and how the numbers fit together.
2. Do the numbers first. Open the spreadsheet and type your startup costs, prices, expected sales and monthly bills into the yellow cells. It works out your profit, your cash in the bank month by month, and your break-even point.
3. Write the ten sections. For each one, read the guide page, look at the example beside it, then write your own in the Word file or on the blank pages.
4. Check and send. Write the summary last, go through the checklist, and save as a PDF.

Most first plans take 7 to 13 hours in total, spread over a week or two.

The ten sections

Summary. The business and what it sells. Customers and market. Competition. Marketing and sales. Operations and people. Startup costs and funding. Sales forecast. Profit and loss, and cash flow. Break-even and risks.

What is inside the book (41 pages)

• How a plan works (3 pages): the whole plan on one page, what a lender, a landlord, a partner and you each look for, and a worked picture of how the numbers connect, including why profit is not the same as cash.
• A guide to each section (10 pages): what to write, how long it should be, what a reader looks for, common mistakes, a weak line beside a stronger one, sentences you can borrow, and what to find out before you start.
• One complete example plan (10 pages): a home cleaning business, written out in full with notes on why each part works. Its startup costs, 12-month sales forecast, profit and loss, cash flow and break-even all add up, and they are the same numbers that are in the spreadsheet.
• Using the spreadsheet, and four kinds of business (2 pages): what you type and what it works out, and what changes if you run a cafe, a salon, an online shop or a service that travels.
• Your plan (12 pages): a cover page, a blank page for each of the ten sections with the tables already drawn, and a checklist to go through before you send it.
• Words used (1 page): every term in plain words.

The spreadsheet

One .xlsx file for Excel or Google Sheets, with an Example tab (the cleaning business, filled in) and an empty tab for you. It covers startup costs, funding and a loan repayment, up to six products or services, a 12-month sales forecast, profit and loss, cash flow with the lowest month picked out, and break-even. Plain formulas only: no macros, nothing to install. You type in the yellow cells and the green cells work themselves out.

What you download

• The book in US Letter and A4, for reading on screen.
• A fillable edition in both sizes, with a box to type in for every answer on the blank plan pages.
• One ZIP holding: the blank plan as an editable Word file (.docx, Letter and A4, also opens in Google Docs and Pages), the spreadsheet (.xlsx), a white-paper print edition of the book in both sizes, and the Start here page on its own.

Good to know

• Both paper sizes are in the download. You do not have to choose when you buy.
• The example uses dollars. The spreadsheet shows plain numbers with no currency sign, so it works with any money.
• The spreadsheet covers the first 12 months. It leaves out sales tax, income tax and the wearing out of equipment, and says so.
• The example business is made up. Its figures show how a plan fits together. They are not typical results for a cleaning business or any other.
• The fillable PDF is made for a desktop reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Chrome or Edge. It does not add anything up; the spreadsheet does.
• Print at 100% or "actual size", not "fit to page".

This is a template and a guide to filling it in. It is not financial, legal, tax or lending advice, and using it does not mean a lender or a landlord will say yes. Rules on registering a business, permits, tax and employing people differ from place to place.