As a founder, do you have to write your sales plan or liquidity plan on your own …? (Quora)

There is nothing wrong with getting support for the business plan. The content, however, has to come from the founder (team). How the consultant achieves this is a question of style, of the agreed scope of services and therefore of the fee. They can, for example, provide templates to fill in, or fill the plan with figures in joint workshops derived from the company’s objectives.

However, I would like to draw a distinction here between the business plan and the liquidity plan.

The business plan sets, or should set, the strategic direction of the company. Where should the company be in three years’ time? How much turnover should it generate? With how many employees? What cost structure does that produce? This is where the strengths of good consultants come into play, if you really do need them.

The liquidity plan is something different. The liquidity plan is meant to ensure the company’s solvency at all times and to show the room for manoeuvre. Can I even hire the new employee that my business plan calls for? 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 liquidity plan initially derives from the business plan and normally has to be updated weekly. In my view 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 continuously updated liquidity plan is the best basis for the revised business plan.

How you update and set up the liquidity plan is a matter of taste. There is the comfortable situation: I have a feel for it and my liquidity reserves are large enough that I can cope well with deviations. The “old-school” approach: I have created a great Excel file and update it regularly. And the option of using cloud-based tools.

The first approach becomes problematic as soon as financing comes up. That always requires a liquidity plan. The second approach harbours 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 produce a liquidity plan from it.

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

Here is the original question on Quora

Credits: This article first appeared on Quora Germany. Photo by Verne Ho on Unsplash