Financing plan (plan de financement)

Sources and assumptions

Calculation assumptions

• The horizon is three years, because that is what the official French business plan asks for ("Vous devez remplir les prévisions sur les 3 années à venir"). A fourth or fifth year cannot be entered.
• Every amount is entered by you: working capital requirement, self-financing capacity and loan capital repaid are not computed here. The BFR calculator and the self-financing capacity calculator help work out the first two; each year's capital repaid is read on the amortisation schedule of your loan offer — the capital alone, not the instalment, which also contains the interest.
• Working capital requirement is entered as an AMOUNT at year end — inventory, plus trade receivables, minus trade payables — and the calculator carries only its INCREASE into the table: “Ne prendre en compte que les éléments nouveaux” (only take new items into account), “indiquer l'accroissement du BFR” (enter the increase in working capital requirement) (https://bpifrance-creation.fr/encyclopedie/previsions-financieres-business-plan/previsions-financieres/plan-financement-a-3-ans, « Le plan de financement à 3 ans », read on 2026-09-26). A stable requirement is therefore financed only once, in the first year; if it falls, the fall frees up a resource. A year 2 or year 3 left blank takes the previous year's amount; a zero entered is a real zero. The OPENING requirement counts as zero if not entered: that is the case of a new business. For an existing business, enter the one from the last balance sheet, at the start of year 1: it is already financed, and only its increase beyond that becomes a year-1 requirement. The amount can be negative when trade payables exceed inventory and receivables (customers paying cash, suppliers on credit): enter it as a negative figure; building it up then frees a resource, carried as a negative requirement.
• Only the loan CAPITAL repaid is a requirement: “reporter le montant du capital remboursé sur le premier exercice (pas les intérêts car ils sont à imputer au compte de résultat)” (enter the capital repaid, not the interest, which belongs in the income statement) (https://bpifrance-creation.fr/encyclopedie/previsions-financieres-business-plan/previsions-financieres/plan-financement-a-3-ans, « Le plan de financement à 3 ans », read on 2026-09-26). The official sheet F35958 nevertheless lists “loan repayments” among the financial charges of the income statement: if you followed that line, your self-financing capacity is already reduced by the capital, and entering it here counts it twice. The amortisation schedule of your loan offer gives the capital part for each year.
• Self-financing capacity is entered BEFORE distribution; dividends or owner's drawings then appear among the needs. If your figure is already net of distribution, leave dividends at zero — otherwise the distribution is deducted twice. The owner's drawings are a requirement for the same reason: “dans le calcul de la CAF (capacité d'autofinancement), les prélèvements de l'exploitant ne sont pas défalqués, il est donc impératif de corriger la CAF en indiquant le montant de ces prélèvements annuels dans la partie besoins” (drawings are not deducted when working out self-financing capacity, so they must be entered as a requirement — https://bpifrance-creation.fr/encyclopedie/previsions-financieres-business-plan/previsions-financieres/plan-financement-a-3-ans, “Le plan de financement à 3 ans”, read on 2026-09-26).
• The investment grant is carried as a resource on a line of its own: the self-financing capacity expected here is therefore NET of it. The official page, by contrast, lists the investment grant among the income statement's revenues ("Autres produits : financiers …, exceptionnels (exemple : subvention d'investissement qui aide par exemple à payer l'achat de matériel)") and defines self-financing capacity as "votre résultat (= vos produits moins vos charges) + les dotations aux amortissements". If that is how you worked out your self-financing capacity, the grant is already inside it: leave the "Investment grants" line at zero, otherwise the grant is counted twice.
• This table does not say when cash runs short within the year: it works on whole years. The month the bank account goes negative is read on the cash-flow plan, the fourth table of the business plan. A plan whose running balance lands exactly on zero is not flagged as short, although the official sheet puts equality on the side of cash difficulties (“Sinon votre entreprise aura des difficultés de trésorerie” — otherwise your business will have cash difficulties): with no margin, the slightest gap tips it over.
• No scale, no statutory rate, no tax constant: a financing plan is a table structure. VAT, disposals of fixed assets and the spreading of an investment grant through the income statement are not modelled.