You may download a pdf copy of the My Fast Financials Pro User Guide here:
MyFASTFinancials Pro User Guide.
Or read on …
Getting Started
Platform
MyFASTFinancials Pro is a spreadsheet template built for Microsoft Excel. You need not own the latest edition of MS-Excel. It will run on at least the last two versions. The template may run on other platforms (i.e. Open Office or Google Docs) that will load an .xls file – but we support its use only on MS-Excel.
MyFASTFinancials Spreadsheet Structure
The spreadsheet is organized into 11 worksheets, each of which is a separate tab. You will see something like this.
Typically you will not see all 11 tabs, but you can scroll through them with the arrows on the left.
6 Input Worksheets
MyFASTFinancials uses 6 input worksheets where you will enter your venture’s data.
- Begin Here
- Revenue and COS Schedule
- Payroll Schedule
- Expense Schedule
- Income Statement Input
- Balance Sheet Input
5 Financial Statement Outputs
From those inputs, the template automatically produces 5 financial statements.
- Income Statement – Annual
- Income Statement – Detailed
- Beg Balance Sheet
- Balance Sheet
- Cash Flow
Color Coded and Protected Cell Input
The cells you need to input are colored light blue. All other cells are protected from input. If you were to change the data in other cells, you could likely break the automatic linkages between worksheets.
Input Worksheets
1. Begin Here
Here you Input your company name, starting year, and names for your revenue and cost of sales accounts (for those who want to name them something other than “revenue” and “cost of sales”).
2. Revenue and COS Schedule
Here you enter your products, their prices and costs, and your projected unit sales month by month. The costs entered here are just the unit costs of your products (i.e. how much it costs your to buy the product or its materials) – other expected expenses are entered on the Expense Schedule.
You first enter the names, unit price, and unit cost of up to 10 products. You may enter a completely different set of 10 for years 2 to 3 (or 2-5, depending on the version of MyFASTFinancials Pro you purchased) to account for changes as you expand.
Next, you enter your unit sales projections month by month for all three (or five) years. Note – to keep the product name with the input cells as your scroll back and forth across your worksheet, you may need to use the Window/Freeze Pane command (and then perhaps use Window/Unfreeze Panes later).
Based on those projections, along with the unit prices and unit costs you have already entered, MyFASTFinancials will automatically calculate and produce schedules of your sales, cost of sales, and gross margin.
These schedules can be handy – you may very well want to print these or refer to them later.
Totals will be automatically posted to your Income Statement.
3. Payroll Schedule
Here you will enter your expected staff positions, the positions’ monthly salary, and the number of employees you expect to hire for each position month by month. You may enter up to 10 types of positions (i.e. manager, supervisor, cook, engineer, programmer).
Next, you will enter the number of employees in each position, month by month for all three (or five) years.
Based on those staffing projections, along with the salary costs you have already entered, MyFASTFinancials will automatically calculate and produce schedules of your payroll cost for all three (or five) years.
Totals will be automatically posted to your Income Statement.
4. Expense Schedule
Here you will enter your monthly expenses. MyFASTFinancials provides a great deal of flexibility in the expense categories that you can set up. You can enter up to 10 expense line items (think of them as subcategories or accounts) in each of 7 main categories.
- Rent/Lease
- Telephone & Utilities
- General Operations
- Professional Fees
- Marketing and Advertising
- Travel
- Other Expenses
First, you will enter the names of your 10 expense line items in each of the 7 categories. Here is an example of one main category, Rent/Lease Expense. You could track rent of up to 10 locations separately. Please note that line items may be different from year to year, to accommodate the new expenses you will experience as you grow.
Next, you will enter the month by month expenses for each line item for all three (or five) years.
5. Income Statement Input
Because you have already input most Income Statement data on your Revenue and COS Schedule, Payroll Schedule, and Expense Schedule, there is little more to input on your Income Statement Input. All that you have to input is the month by month amounts for any depreciation and interest on debt.
6. Balance Sheet Input
Here you will information about your venture’s assets and liabilities.
First, you will need to fill in beginning balances (i.e. the Day One Balance Sheet). If you are a startup, without any assets of liabilities, this may be blank (but you likely will have contributed at least some cash or equipment to bootstrap your venture).
Starting with the beginning balances, MyFASTFinancials will automatically update Cash and Retained Earnings, but you will need to fill in the expected year end balances for all other accounts for all three (or five) years.
Special Note 1: Line of Credit means a line of credit that is in use. In the Cookies and Cakes example, C&C had $55,00 due on its line of credit at the end of 2011. The bank may have given it a higher line of credit to access, but it had only accessed $55,000. And, it paid off the line of credit entirely in 2012.
Special Note 2: When entering equity investment, remember that an investment stays in the company unless it is bought back by the company. In the example, the company started with an equity investment of $20,000 (equal to the cash on hand at the venture’s beginning). The $20,000 is carried forward for all the years because none was bought back. Additional equity created by business operations is shown as Retained Earnings.
Your entries will be combined with the calculated Cash and Retained Earnings balances and posted to your Beginning Balance Sheet and Balance Sheet (that shows all three or five years).
Output Worksheets
1. Income Statement – Annual
This Income Statement presents a simple summary for all three (or five) years.
2. Income Statement – Detailed
This Income Statement presents month by month data for the first year and quarterly data for the subsequent years.
3. Beg Balance Sheet
This beginning Balance Sheet presents just the data for the assets and liabilities of your venture as of Day One of the proforma.
4. Balance Sheet
This Balance Sheet presents year end data for all three (or five) years.
5. Cash Flow
This worksheet presents a standard Statement of Cash flow. All numbers for the year end cash flow activity are automatically calculated from your Income Statement and Balance Sheet inputs.
