Fitting in those financials

Oh boy! How are we going to fit all that financial information in to just 4-5 pages of your submission?? There is a way!

First of all, I'll tell you that the formatting requirements loosen up in this area. You don't need to follow the "Arial, 11pt, 1" margins, etc" guidelines.

Next, I've taken winning submissions from the past couple of years and pulled out some tips I can give you from their plans:
- On the first page of your financials, introduce what the reader is about to see. Write a summary about the type of statements that will follow, the timelines, the balances and justifications.
- Outline numbering will help you keep the readers thoughts focused. For example, 9.1 Cash Flow, 9.2 Income Statement, etc...
- Use footnotes or denote remarks with justifications where possible. For example, “*B: Salaries-$$$” or “*H: Calculated @ 5% of receivables”
- Be honest with yourself and plan for contingencies.
- Common terms for titling your statements:
o Pro Forma Monthly Cash Flow Analysis for year ending: [Date]
o Pro Forma Monthly Cash Flow Analysis for year ending: [Date, next year]
o Pro Forma Income Statement for years ending: [Date, 3 years]
o Pro Forma Balance Sheet for years ending: [Date, 3 years]
o Break Even Analysis
- Graphs, charts and tables are great tools.
- Use appendices. There’s no guarantee that a screener will review them, but if they see that you’ve included back-up to anything that might pique their interest, they’ll dig deeper. There is a 10-page maximum on appendices.

If you have any tips you’ve used that you think will help out, don’t be afraid to post them here! We love comments from the readers!!