Financial Plan Tips For An Ice Cream Business

Money is the blood of your business. So, you have to be extremely thorough with your finances. 

In this post, I’ve compiled 5 financial plan tips that you can follow for your ice cream business. These tips are super effective and easy to follow. So, read on if you want to attract investors or have an effective financial system. 

Here are 5 financial tips that you can follow for your ice cream business:

1. Know How Your Ice Cream Shop Will Secure Funding
2. Learn How Your Ice Cream Shop Can Break-Even
3. Plan For Your Taxes
4. Build An Emergency Fund 
5. Make Financial Projections

Know How Your Ice Cream Shop Will Secure Funding

If you’re just a starting ice cream business owner, you need to have enough funds to get your ice cream shop up and going. So, before making a financial plan for your business, you must have a plan to secure funding. 

You have to know how much you need and have some backup funds. After that, you can find and choose avenues where you can secure those funds, and here are some of them:

• Personal Loans – Your loans are multipurpose. So, you can definitely use it for your startup funds. 
• Loans From Private Investors – Borrowing from your private partners is also a great way to secure your ice cream shop funds. It is also more convenient as it gives you the freedom to choose your investors. 
• Funds From Family or Friends – Asking for financial help from your loved ones is a hassle-free way to secure funds. This gives you more freedom to negotiate for more flexible payment options. 
• Small Business Administration Loans – SBA is good for a small ice cream business as it provides generous term lengths, good caps on interest rates, and low downpayment requirements. 

5 Main Threats To Your Ice Cream Shop To Look Out For

Learn How Your Ice Cream Shop Can Break-Even

Conducting a break-even analysis can help you know how much sales your ice cream shop needs to cover the costs or expenses. This is most important to new businesses to help them set financial goals 

You can start by assessing your ice cream shop’s best sellers. You need to know everything regarding your best sellers, such as their total cost, variable cost, sales price, and net profit. 

If you do that, you should be able to acquire an accurate picture of fixed and variable expenditures. It also assists your business in determining which products are not profitable and determining if you need to raise the price, cut the cost of supplying it, or potentially abandon it.

You can check out these tools for your break-even analysis:

• Zoho
• Nase

Plan For Your Taxes

It’s a real burden to not know how much and when your taxes are due. It will absolutely put your ice cream business in danger. So, you have to make sure that your taxes are included in your financial strategy. 

You must understand which taxes apply to your ice cream business and include them in your financial plan. Your business may be subject to income taxes, employment taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes. So, you need to watch out for those. 

By thoroughly planning your taxes, you can take advantage of the following:

• Allowable Deductions
• Tax Credits

Ice Cream Truck Van Conversion Cost: All You Need To Know

Build An Emergency Fund 

Just like having an emergency ice cream in your fridge, you need to have an emergency fund. This will help you save your ice cream shop in times of crisis like load-shedding, and economic downturns. 

Securing an emergency fund also helps you stay away from unnecessary debts and excessive spending. It’s also not that hard. You can choose how much money to set aside. For example, you can set aside at least 5% to 10% of your money. It’s totally up to your liking. 

Make Financial Projections

Creating a financial forecast can greatly help you estimate the financial milestones of your ice cream business. It will help decide how you will manage your money.

This is important, especially if you’re hoping to attract investors. A business without a financial projection is less likely to get funds from investors. So, you have to make sure that you have one for your ice cream business. 

For starters, you can follow these steps:

1. Create a Sales Projection – You can calculate your predicted sales by multiplying your total estimated sales by the price of each item you sell. 
2. Make a Projection for Expenses – For this portion, you just have to predict possible expenses. For example, if you think that there will be damage to your ice cream equipment, you need to predict how much that would cost. 
3. Create a Balance Sheet Projection – This helps you determine the financial health of your ice cream business at a specific point in time. So, if you want to have plans for every financial risk, you should make a balance sheet projection. 
4. Create an Income Statement Projection – You can construct an income statement projection by estimating your expected figures using your present income statement. This helps you have a clear picture of your ice cream shop’s net income. 
5. Make a Cash Flow Projection – The cash flow statement is linked to both the income statement and the balance sheet. It helps you know how your business money is being spent. 

Conclusion 

All in all, these are the 5 financial tips for your ice cream business:

1. Know How Your Ice Cream Shop Will Secure Funding – Find out how and where you can secure funds for your ice cream business. 
2. Learn How Your Ice Cream Shop Can Break Even – Know how your ice cream shop can cover the total cost of your products. 
3. Plan For Your Taxes – Include your taxes in your financial strategy. This helps you know how much budget you still have. 
4. Build An Emergency Fund – This helps you stay away from debts and unnecessary expenses. 
5. Make Financial Projections – Think of how your business will do in the future in terms of finances. 

How To Add Value To Your Ice Cream Business

Frequently Asked Questions

To learn more on how to start your own ice cream/gelato business check out my startup documents here

This blog post is provided for informational purposes only. The information contained is not intended to constitute legal advice or to substitute for obtaining legal advice from a qualified attorney.