Business Planning

Training › Small Enterprise training

Plan next year month by month, and see a cash shortage coming

Running from month to month, and only spotting a cash shortage when it arrives? This course turns your own records into next year’s plans: sales, costs, profit, cash flow and, if you need one, a loan. Then you check the business against the plan every month.

▶▶ Watch the short introduction to the course on YouTube

What you walk away with

• ✔An analysis of last year: what changed, and why
• ✔A risk list, with what you will do about each risk
• ✔Twelve-month sales, cost, profit and cash flow plans
• ✔A loan access plan that shows whether borrowing pays

See the prices Start the course

Choose how you want to learn

Already have the self-paced course? Add a webinar or a live class on the course page and pay only the difference. Pay by EcoCash or Paynow; the self-paced course opens as soon as your payment is confirmed.

Where two prices are shown, the first is for paid-up Small Enterprise, Medium Enterprise and Corporate members, and the second is for everyone else, including Standard members, Start-up members and non-members. Sending your bookkeeper or managers? On the course page, choose Buying for your staff?: pay once for as many seats as you need and receive one code per person, which opens the course on their own login. Each certificate carries your business name.

About the course

Turn your figures into plans and forecasts you can run the business by.

For businesses that are already trading. You analyse how the business did, forecast the changes coming, list and manage your risks, and make next year’s plans month by month: sales and marketing, production and costs, profit, cash flow and, if you need one, a loan. You leave with your Annual Plan and Forecasts and a routine to check the business against it every month. Develop Your Business Plan writes the plan that takes the business to its next stage; this course is the yearly planning that runs it. Adapted for Zimbabwean conditions from the International Labour Organization’s Improve Your Business programme. It is one of the six Improve Your Business modules, each of which can be taken on its own.

Who it is for

• Owners and managers of businesses that have traded for at least a year and keep basic records
• Bookkeepers and managers sent by their employer: the plan is agreed with the employer, and the certificate carries the business name
• Members whose Action Plan includes the Accounting Systems or Funding sections

What you will do

About 12 hours in all: roughly 5 on screen and 7 with your own records and figures. Most learners finish within two to three weeks.

1. Welcome (30 minutes). Why a trading business needs plans, and a picture of your business and records today.
2. Planning for the future (45 minutes). What goes wrong without a plan, the five plans that help a small business, and six tips.
3. Analyse your business (1.5 hours). Sales, costs and profit from your records: what changed, and why.
4. Forecast the changes around you (45 minutes). Customers, competitors, suppliers, the economy and regulations, based on facts.
5. Manage your risks (1.25 hours). Identify, assess and prioritise risks, and choose to accept, transfer, reduce or avoid each one.
6. Objectives and the Sales and Marketing Plan (1.75 hours). Objectives for next year, marketing actions by the seven Ps, and a monthly sales forecast.
7. The Production and Cost Plan (1.75 hours). Produce better and cheaper, then forecast production, overheads, materials and labour.
8. The Profit Plan and the Cash Flow Plan (2 hours). Monthly profit against your objective, and the twelve-line cash flow plan that shows a shortage months ahead.
9. The Loan Access Plan, and using your plans (1 hour). Whether to borrow, what a loan really costs, and the monthly plan-against-actual check.
10. Your Annual Plan and Forecasts (45 minutes). Check your planning practices, write a dated action plan, and send it for review.

What you leave with

• Your Annual Plan and Forecasts: a business analysis, a risk list, objectives, twelve-month sales, cost and profit plans, a cash flow plan, a loan access plan, a monthly routine and a dated action plan
• The SMEAZ Planning workbook (Excel), which does the arithmetic for every plan
• A Certificate of Completion when your plan is approved, and a Certificate of Competence once you have run the business by it

How the self-paced course works

• Work on your phone or computer, in short sessions. Your answers are saved as you go.
• Every exercise is about your own business, not a textbook case.
• An AI coach comments on your key answers and asks the questions a consultant would ask.
• A SMEAZ consultant reviews your finished work and replies with comments.
• Your certificate carries a number and a QR code that anyone can check on our website.

Ready to start?

Start the course Join the live class list

You will be asked to log in to your SMEAZ website account first. No account yet? Registering is free and takes two minutes.

What comes next

Need finance for your plan? Members who save with the SMEAZ SACCOS can apply for business loans. Then strengthen another area with the other Improve Your Business modules on the Small Enterprise training page.

Questions? Message us on WhatsApp.

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