Small business plan template for a business that already trades
Eleven chapters in Word, Google Docs or PDF, with guidance on writing from your own trading record rather than from assumptions. No email required.
- Which six figures to pull out of your accounts first
- What a lender, a landlord and a partner each read first
- Word, Google Docs or PDF, set up to print cleanly
Word
Google DocsThirty-one pages: the eleven chapters, with the financial tables carrying two years of actuals beside three projected, so the line between what happened and what you expect is drawn on the page.
Writing a plan for a business that exists
Most template pages assume you are starting out. If you have been trading for years and now need a plan for a bank, a landlord or a partner, five things work differently.
Your history replaces most of the forecasting argument
A startup has to argue its numbers are plausible. You have two or three years of actuals, so the job is different: show the trend, explain the odd months honestly, and project forward from what already happened. Lenders trust a modest forecast anchored in real figures over an ambitious one built from assumptions.
The hard part is the part you stopped noticing
You know your customers so well you will under-describe them. Who actually pays you, how they found you, and why they chose you over the business down the road are the sections that go thin when the writer is close to it. Pull the answers from your own invoices rather than memory.
Last year's figures have to reconcile
If the plan says 240,000 dollars and the tax return says 215,000, the whole document stops being credible. Pull the numbers from your accounts, not from what you remember, and say plainly where a difference comes from.
Write it for the decision in front of you
A plan for a loan, a plan for a lease, and a plan for bringing in a partner emphasise completely different things. One generic document asked to serve all three usually persuades nobody. Start from who is reading it.
Owner pay belongs in the costs
This is the single most common omission in small business plans. If the forecast does not include what you take out of the business, the profit figure is fiction and the cash flow is worse than it looks.
Six figures to pull out of your accounts first
You already have all of this. It is just not sitting anywhere convenient. Spend an hour getting it out and the plan writes itself in an afternoon instead of stalling every third paragraph.
The financial section when you have a track record
A made-up commercial cleaning round. Two years of actuals, then three projected, with the boundary left obvious. This is the layout a lender wants and the one a startup template cannot give you.
| 2024actual | 2025actual | 2026projected | 2027projected | 2028projected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 214,000 | 238,000 | 262,000 | 288,000 | 312,000 |
| Staff and subcontractors | 118,000 | 129,000 | 141,000 | 155,000 | 167,000 |
| Vehicles, materials, insurance | 41,000 | 44,000 | 48,000 | 52,000 | 55,000 |
| Owner pay | 38,000 | 40,000 | 42,000 | 44,000 | 46,000 |
| Profit before tax | 17,000 | 25,000 | 31,000 | 37,000 | 44,000 |
The first two columns come from the tax returns
Not from memory, and not rounded to look tidier. If a lender pulls the accounts and the plan says something different, every other number in the document becomes suspect.
Owner pay is a line, not a footnote
Forty thousand a year is in the costs, so the profit figure is what the business makes after the owner is paid. Leave it out and the profit line is fiction. This is the single most common omission in small business plans.
The growth has a named cause
The 2026 step comes from two office contracts signed in November, not a percentage applied across the board. Growth a reader can trace to a specific thing reads completely differently from growth that just happens.
The dip is left visible
2024 was weak because a large account was lost in the spring. Explaining a bad year in one sentence is worth far more than smoothing it away and hoping nobody checks.
Four people this usually gets written for
They weigh completely different sections. Knowing which one you are writing for decides the length, the tone and where you spend the effort.
A bank or SBA lender
Can this business service the debt
They read the financial plan first and the rest to check it is believable. Three years of projections, your actuals behind them, and a clear statement of what the money buys. Collateral and personal credit sit alongside the plan rather than inside it.
A landlord
Will this tenant still be here in three years
Much shorter. They want trading history, who you are, and evidence that rent is comfortably covered. A full lender-grade plan is usually more than they asked for.
A potential partner or first serious hire
Is there something real to join
The strategy sections carry the weight here, not the forecast. Where the business is going, what their part in it is, and what gets decided by whom.
You, in twelve months
Did we do what we said
The most neglected reader and the one who benefits most. Write the targets down with dates and you have something to check against, which is the only version of a plan that keeps earning its keep after it is filed.
Already have the numbers? Upmetrics turns them into the forecast.
Or start from a plan in your trade
The template on this page is blank on purpose. If you would rather see how someone in your line of work answered each section first, there are complete worked plans for more than 340 industries.
- Restaurant
- Coffee shop
- Food truck
- Cleaning company
- HVAC
- Plumbing
- Construction
- Trucking
- Landscaping
- Lawn care
- Hair salon
- Real estate agency
Browse all 340+ example plans if your trade is not listed here.
Not quite the right one?
Same template underneath. What changes is the guidance around it, and which sections do the work.
- Startup business plan templatePre-revenue, forecasting from assumptions with no trading history behind you.
- Simple business plan templateSix chapters instead of eleven, and which four you can safely cut.
- One page business plan templateThe whole business on a single sheet, with a worked example.
- 5 year business plan templateYear one monthly, years two to five annual, for a longer horizon.
- Nonprofit business plan templatePrograms, funding mix, governance and the impact section funders score.
Or go back to the full business plan template.
The plan is the easy half. The financials are the half that gets checked.
Projections, cash flow and a balance sheet that stay consistent with each other as you change a number.
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