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A business plan for your lawn care business is essential. If applying for a business loan or looking for business partners then it has to be comprehensive and you will find many templates on line that you can use.

However for a small lawn care start up a self-styled plan can be sufficient. At the very least a business plan is a way of getting all your thoughts and ideas down on paper and provides a benchmark for you to assess your progress as your business grows and changes.

Using information from your market research you should anticipate monthly income (remember to include a conservative estimate as well as a realistic estimate as your customer base may not grow as quickly as you hope). Then research lawn business set up costs and monthly expenses to have a clear idea of what kind of profit you will make on a monthly basis and what kind of start up capital you will need.

These figures should be projected into the future so you have clear ideas about the rate of growth that you require to meet your long-term goals.

It’s important to have a clear idea of how many new lawns you need to add each month to maintain a rate of growth that will achieve your goals. You then need to have a solid marketing plan to bring in these new clients regularly.

Carefully analyzing what your competitors are offering is also a great way to understand your local market and to work out a plan for yourself.

One of the most important goals to consider is at what point you will take on your first employee. Working too hard mowing lawns can impact on your marketing efforts. In my opinion you should spend 70% of your time mowing lawns and 30% of your time managing and developing your business.

AS you grow you can then continually reduce the amount of time spent mowing lawns. If you find that you are spending more than 70% of your time mowing lawns then you should hire an employee rather than neglect other aspects of your business by spending too much time on day to day business chores. ‘Work on your business and not in it’ so they say.

Your lawn care business plan should also clearly set out how you plan on running your business operations on a daily basis, from handling customer enquiries and invoicing clients to hiring crews and how you will manage them.

A solid plan should also include information on accounting, taxation, insurance and legal matters. Getting professional advice from experts is recommended in these areas.

Best of luck planning and setting up your new lawn services business!

Whether your accountant is producing your accounts or carrying out your annual audit, being prepared for them will ensure their work is carried out smoothly and efficiently and with the minimum disruption to yourselves.

You may also be able to help by preparing some of the routine schedules. This will mean your accountant’s time can be better spent advising you on the running of your business. We highlight below many of the ways in which you can help.

It is however important for you to discuss these ideas with you accountant since all of the suggestions may not be applicable.

Keeping them informed

They will be better prepared if they know of any changes within your business that could affect their work. These could include changes in your:

product or market
business strategy eg pricing policy
bookkeeping system
key personnel.

What your accountant needs

If you know what information they need to be able to complete their work, you can make sure it is available.

They can decide together what you can prepare, and what they will need to prepare themselves.

Better communication between you will help to minimise misunderstandings and avoid unnecessary work.

Timetable

You need to agree a suitable timetable in advance. This gives you both a chance to be properly prepared. However, if you find yourself behind schedule let your accountant know as soon as possible so that the timetable can be rearranged if necessary.

How you can help with books and records

Setting up and maintaining your books in an organised manner will help them to extract quickly and easily the information needed to prepare or audit your accounts. It will also enable you to see at a glance the state of your business.

Consideration of the following points may improve the organisation of your records:
totalling and balancing your books at regular intervals will help you spot and correct any mistakes
analysing your payments and receipts so that information can be easily extracted
filing your invoices in a logical order (numerical, alphabetical or date) to make it easy to find any one of them.

Procedures

By establishing and maintaining certain procedures, you will be able to keep a better control over your records and your business. It will also mean your accountant can cut down on the work they need to do which may save you some money.

They can help you set up these procedures initially and once established you will be able to carry them out yourself. These procedures will include control accounts, reconciliations and stocktaking.

Control accounts

Control accounts record the movements of cash, debtors and creditors by using the monthly totals from your cashbook and sales and purchases summaries.

The cash control account will show how much cash the business has at the end of each month.
The debtors or sales ledger control account will show how much your customers owe you at the end of each month.
The creditors or purchase ledger control account will show how much you owe your suppliers at the end of each month.

Reconciliations

Reconciliations help to ensure that the figures in your books are complete and accurate. Therefore if produced on a regular basis they will help you spot any errors which can then be corrected before we examine your records. Some of the records that will need reconciling are:

bank accounts
control accounts
suppliers’ statements.

Stocktake

If your business carries any stock, you will need to count it at least once a year. To ensure that the count is carried out efficiently and accurately you should consider the following points:

stock items should be stored neatly and logically to make counting easier
all staff involved in counting should be given clear instructions
try to minimise the movement of stock during the count. If possible deliveries in and out should be withheld until the counting has finished
spot checks should be performed during the count.

If you hold large amounts of stock, we may need to attend the stocktake and perform our own checks.

Schedules

There are a number of schedules that have to be produced so the accounts can be prepared and/or audited. Your accountant can prepare all of these schedules ourselves, but if you were to produce them, it would save time.

You may wish to consider the preparation of some of the following schedules:

a detailed list of additions and disposals of fixed assets with a copy of the appropriate sales and purchase invoices attached
schedules showing each item of stock held, the quantity, unit value and total value. Indicate any stock showing each item of stock held, the quantity, unit value and total value. Indicate any stock items which are old or damaged
a list of your debtors at the year-end including how much they owe you and how long they have been outstanding. Indicate any which are unlikely to pay you
a schedule of all bank and cash balances at the year end, together with all the bank statements for each bank account
a list of creditors that should include HMRC as well as the usual business suppliers.

Not all of these schedules will be applicable to your business and therefore before doing anything you may wish to discuss this with your accountant.

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals. It contains the reasons why the goals are believed to be attainable, as well as the intended plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or the team attempting to reach those goals.

You will need to ascertain whether there is a niche market for the product or service that you intend to offer. If the market exists, you will need to know how much of a demand there will be and whether you can command the price that you would need in order to make the necessary profits to sustain and grow your business. A good business plan will show how your product fits into its industry and what its growth potential would be. You would need to provide a plan on dealing with the competition in order to show how you intend marketing your product differently, making it superior to the rest.

Additional factors such as financing requirements must be shown in a business plan.

Costs such as launching the new company; training staff; and initial advertising schemes need to be taken into account.

A comprehensive and well-prepared business plan will essentially provide a detailed outline of your product; its marketing scheme; the expected costs in getting that product / service to market; and then, obviously, the expected returns that must be viable enough to ensure profitability, sustainability and growth.

Find the right consulting firm to assist you in making the necessary assessments and in undertaking due diligence. These discoveries will create a business plan that will prove to be effective and insightful. Ensure that your choice of consulting firm takes your business to a new level of growth; creating greater expectation of success; all starting with the effective and comprehensive preparation of a business plan that can be relied on.

A lot of people can surely agree that planning is a very important, if not the most important, part of any endeavor. Entire kingdoms of old and new have gone down due to lack of or ineffective planning. Entrepreneurs know this and that’s why drawing up an effective business plan takes at least an entire semester in business school.Online business plans are just as important and therefore should be studied and prepared thoroughly.

So why exactly should online business plans be prepared? They are going to be very useful as they will define your goals and objectives through appropriate information and analysis. Once you have a business plan, you will have an anchor you can come back to whenever you feel distracted or have strayed from your original vision. It will also be useful as a selling tool when dealing with key relationships such as with lenders, banks, and investors.

It can uncover weaknesses and omissions in the planning process you undergo. It can be used to solicit advice and opinions from people, especially those in your target field of business. Input from those who have already gone some ways in the online business field will be invaluable to you, and you will have your online business plan to show those experts so they can study it and draw up conclusions and appropriate advice afterward.

How should your online business plan look like? It should be formatted in a way that all factors essential to your business purpose are systematically assessed. First, there must be a mission and vision statement, which may seem trivial but, as aforementioned, will anchor you during the whole process of maintaining your online business.

Second, you should include the people involved.

Not to make your ego inflate, but you will be a key ingredient here. Consider all your prior experiences which may be applicable to your new online business. Study your résumé and that of anyone else who will be involved, such as your partner(s). Be factual and completely objective as this section will be particularly focused on by anyone with whom you’ll be having relationships from potential investors to vendors.

Third, your business profile should be written. This will be the definition of your intended business and how you plan to execute it all exactly. If you envision serving a specialized market, indicate so.

Fourth is an economic assessment, which is an evaluation of the economic environment your business will be a part of. Demographics will be included here. In relation to that, the fifth portion is your cash flow assessment. Draw up a one-year cash flow which will cover your capital requirements. Write what potential problems you may encounter financially and how you plan to address them. Sixth, will be your marketing and expansion plans.

Those are the basic parts of online business plans, and hopefully after having drawn those up you’ll be able to focus properly on what your business needs to really take off and be successful. Good luck on your entrepreneurship!