Import From China Business

A practical guide for starting a small business

2010-2012  Copyright import-from-china-business.com

Import from China
Sell on eBay

Sandra Kell
Ontario, Canada
Baby Products
Profit This Year: $10,400

“I started with $1,000 and began importing baby products from China. I sell them on eBay, Facebook and in my local stores.  After 8 months, I am earning $400 a week.  I finally quit my day job!”

Learn How

Business Financial Budget

Business Financial Budget Purpose

A Financial budget for a Business is a projected financial statement for a specific time. It serves as the roadmap for monitoring a business’s activities and performance. This financial tool is one of the most important for the importing business owner.

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Business Financial Budget Importance

As for financial planning, many small business owners do nothing more than make sure that their payroll is taking care of for this week. This is very short sighted and often leads to failure.  

By the use of a business financial budget, you can plan where your business is going both in the short term and long term periods.  Financial budgets are updated with actual figures as time goes by.  You can see if you are on course or not.  It will allow you to adjust accordingly if your business takes another direction.  Without this, you are simply operating your import from China business with your eyes closed.

Typically Business Financial Budgets are done for a short term period and a long term period:

1. Short term Business Financial Budget - Financial statement for the current year broken out by months or minimally by quarterly.
2. Long term Business Financial Budget - Annual financial statements for a minimum of 3 years sometimes up to 5 years.

Types of Business Financial Budgets

There are three primary types of Business Financial Budgets:

1. Operating Budget or Income Statement - It estimates incomes and expenses of a business for a future time period.  This determines whether the business will be profitable for the specific time period.
2. Cash Flow Budget -  This projects out the flow of cash in and out of a business for a specific time period.  Cash is king for the small business owner.  Without cash on hand, the small business owner will not be able meet the financial obligations.
3. Capital Budget - This budget allows you to plan for the acquisition of long term assets to benefit your company. Capital assets which include land, building, equipment are expensive items. Having a capital budget will allow you to plan your purchases correctly.

Steps to Creating Business Financial Budget

You can simplify the budgeting process by the use of an accounting software such as QuickBooks or Peachtree Accounting.  For examples of operating, cash and capital budgets in an excel file format that you can modify and use for your own business, download here.

Here are the steps to creating your own budgets:

1. Identify the type of budget and the major categories which will be included:  
   
   Operating Budget Categories - All income and all expenses
   
   Cash Budget - All cash in and all cash out of the business.  
   
   Capital Budget - Long term costs and contributions of the assets
2. Organize the budget categories in order so that calculations can be completed.
   
   Operating Budget Order:  Profit or Loss = Income  - Expenses
   
   Cash Budget Sequence: Cash Flow = Cash Receipts - Cash Payments.
   
   Capital Budget Calculation:  A number of different methods are used such as payback method, net present value method or internal rate of return.
3. Collect all your information that will impact the budget.
4. Make estimates of the budgeted amounts for future periods.  This can be adjusted by an absolute amount if known or just increase/decrease it by a percentage.
5. Complete financial calculations.
   
    

Sensitivity Analysis Using Business Financial Budget

Once you have created your business financial budget, you can conduct some sensitivity analysis.   This is creating “what if” scenarios to see the impact of changes in certain variables on your business.  You think of a scenario for your business, plug in the new number in the spreadsheet and what what happens.  Here are some common sensitivity analysis:

• Increase sales by 5%, 10% or 15% to see changes to your bottom line.
• Decrease your cost of goods by 5% due to a new supplier.  See the impact on your net profits.
• How much more net income can you generate by decreasing operating expenses by 5%.

You can come up with other scenarios which are applicable to you.  Have fun!