Tying Financial Projections from Your Business Plan into a Pitch Deck

When you sit down, or give instruction to a business plan or Pitch Deck writer, to create your pitch deck, one part of the consideration will be representing your business’s financial projections. Although you will likely only present a top-line summarized version of your financial projections from your business plan, they will have a big impact on your overall pitch deck.

Overview of Financial Projections in a Business Plan

The standard expectations for Financial Projections Business Plan align with the three primary financials statements you will regularly utilize to understand the state of your business and make informed business decisions. These include:

1. Income Statement – The income statement, also commonly known as the profit & loss (P&L) statement, shows the revenue and expenses of a company between two points in time. It shows how income transforms into net profit (or loss).

2. Statement of Cash Flow – This statement shows how income and balance sheet items - called accounts in financial accounting terms – impact the amount of cash and cash equivalents. Like the income statement, this represents the movement over a specific time period.

3. Balance Sheet – The balance sheet, as the name implies, shows the balance of specific financial components of a business. It is broken down into assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity. Unlike the income statement the balance sheet is not a document that shows movement between two points in time. Rather, it is a snapshot of a financial position at a given point in time.

4. Other Financial Projections – Beyond projections of three primary financial statements, you are likely to have other financial information like a break-even analysis. Also, depending on your specific business model, you may choose to include others. All Financial Projections in your business plan will not necessarily need to be included in your pitch deck.

Connecting Financial Projections to the Pitch Deck

Everything you are presenting explains the reasoning and rational behind the financial projections of your business plan. Although you will not focus heavily on the detailed projections, your pitch deck presentation will be touching on the elements that ultimately comprise and support the numbers. With any luck, your pitch deck presentation will lead to further interest in your business and your audience will view your entire business plan. This is when they will get into the full financial projections. They will have a deeper understanding of where your numbers come from because of the other elements of your Business Plan and what was covered in the pitch deck.

Most of the time, when you need a pitch deck, it is because you are approaching a potential investor. The financial projections overall are incredibly important but, they will be most interested in your balance sheet. Why? Because in terms of financial statements, it is only in the balance sheet that they get a glimpse into the expectation of business ownership. This is, of course, going to be something that is negotiated but, the balance sheet is the formal, organized way of representing how the business is to be funded in total beyond their potential investment.

Though the financial projections from your business plan may not be included in the pitch deck in detail, they are still intimately tied together into all aspects of it. You cannot separate a business from the numbers and the Pitch Deck, despite not usually being number-centric, is evidence of that.