Home topics finance finance-cash-flow Cashflow Cashflow Getting Your Finance Right Guest Author October 2, 2007 If you don’t plan and budget, how will you know what sort of funding your business needs, how much and when? Dennis Mattiske looks at ways of integrating planning, reporting, analysis and adjustment to smooth the way from start-up to expanding your business. As all of our young guns can tell you, starting up a business is a very exciting time but requires a great deal of work, planning, and preparation to increase the chances of success. One of the most important areas to get right is financing. Good financial planning can be the key to whether a business makes it through the start-up phase, or fails to find its feet. Unfortunately, people often underestimate the costs involved and can be over-optimistic about the time needed to get the business to a profitable level of trading. It’s essential to identify right from the start all the costs that are likely to be incurred, both as one-off start-up costs and then ongoing costs as the business develops and grows. These costs may seem innumerable. They include rental bonds, fit-outs, purchase of equipment, computers and software, website development, employee hiring, stationery, logo and packaging design, and setting up marketing channels. On top of this is the investment in working capital, such as the stock and level of debtors (net of creditors) required to run the business, as well as the initial losses that may be incurred in