It is not wrong to get support for the business plan. But the content must come from the founder (team). How the consultant achieves this is a question of style, the agreed scope of services and thus the fee. He can, for example, provide templates to fill in or fill in the plan with figures in joint workshops derived from the business goals.

However, I would like to make a distinction here between a business plan and Cash flow plan .

The business plan gives or should give the strategic direction of the company. Where should the company be in three years? How much turnover should it have? With how many employees? What is the resulting cost structure? This is where the strengths of good consultants come into play, if you really need them.

The Cash flow plan is something else. The Cash flow plan should ensure the company's solvency at all times and show the scope for action. Can I even hire the new employee specified in my business plan? Can I implement the market entry as planned?

While the business plan hardly changes (or should hardly change) over a period of 6-12 months, the Cash flow plan is derived from the business plan at the beginning and usually needs to be updated on a weekly basis. In my opinion, this can only be done by the founder (team). A consultant would be the wrong choice here (and too expensive). Incidentally, a well-made and constantly updated Cash flow plan is the best basis for the revised business plan.

How you update and set up Cash flow plan is a matter of taste. There is the comfortable situation: I have a feel for it and my liquidity reserves are so large that I can handle deviations well. The "old-school" approach: I've created a great Excel spreadsheet and update it regularly. And the option of using cloud-based tools.

The first approach becomes problematic as soon as the issue of financing arises. This always requires a Cash flow plan. The second approach has many sources of error, is manual and is usually tied to one person.

There are few cloud-based tools in this area, especially for smaller companies. Online accounting tools can map a plan and possibly also create a Cash flow planning from it.

(...) We have always been annoyed about this gap for the last 10 years and that is why we developed our product. COMMITLY developed our product. COMMITLY is software for better liquidity management. The only requirement is an online bank account.

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