Mastering SBA Business Plans: Bank Expectations in Business Plans

The key points that the bank is going to be looking for in your business plan are definitely going to be the second half of your business plan, which we would consider probably the most important part for the bank, which would be your financial projections.So with your financial projections, you want to have the written assumptions that tell us how you arrived at your revenue costs and expense numbers. And then beyond that, you also want to include financial projection reports, such as a profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and also cashflow statement projections as well. In the written portion, the bank is going to be looking for your executive summary that tells an overview of what you're doing with your project.

They're also going to want to see research and demographics, which means they want to know what is the market for your business, who are the people that are going to be buying from you. They also want to know the competition, like who are your competitors in your area, or maybe you have an area that is nationwide or worldwide. They really want to know who your chief competitors are.

You also want to discuss your operations, where you function out of, how you function, what kind of staff you're using to function. And you also want to have a management summary where you're discussing all the employees that are crucial to the operations of the business and their roles and their backgrounds.