A restaurant plan and a SaaS plan are not the same document.
Generic plans fail because their readers aren't generic. A lender reading a restaurant plan wants covers, food cost percentage and a licensing schedule. The same lender reading a haulage plan wants cost per mile and empty running. We write to the metrics your sector is actually judged on.
Restaurants & Food Service
Restaurants fail on cash flow long before they fail on food, and every lender knows it - which is why a restaurant plan is scrutinised harder than almost any other. Fit-out costs, licensing and a brutal fixed-cost base mean the numbers have to work before the doors open.
- Covers, seat turnover & average spend - the revenue engine, modelled per daypart rather than as a monthly blob
- Food cost % and gross margin by menu category - 28-35% food cost is the credibility band
- Premises and alcohol licensing, food hygiene rating, EHO registration, plus lease terms and dilapidations liability
Retail & E-commerce
Retail plans live or die on inventory: the money is tied up in stock long before it becomes revenue. Lenders and investors want to see you understand working capital, not just traffic.
- Inventory turns, stock-holding cost & the working-capital cycle - the single biggest cash trap
- Blended CAC against contribution margin per order, and the return rate most plans forget to cost
- Channel mix and platform dependency - marketplace fees and Amazon/Etsy concentration risk
Technology & SaaS
SaaS plans are read by investors who see hundreds a year and will test your assumptions in the first five minutes. Everything hinges on whether the recurring revenue model is real and whether the growth is affordable.
- MRR/ARR build, churn & net revenue retention - cohort-based, not a growth percentage
- CAC payback period and LTV:CAC ratio - under 12 months and above 3:1 is the expected shape
- Runway, burn multiple & the milestone this round buys - investors fund a milestone, not a company
Healthcare & Clinics
Healthcare plans carry regulatory weight no other sector does: the plan must show you can be compliant, insured and staffed before it shows you can be profitable. Reimbursement mechanics often matter more than pricing.
- CQC registration (UK) or equivalent licensing, and clinical governance - a hard gate, not a footnote
- Payer mix - private vs NHS/insurer/self-pay, and the cash-collection lag each one carries
- Practitioner capacity, utilisation & indemnity insurance - revenue is capped by clinician-hours, not demand
Construction & Trades
Construction is a working-capital business disguised as a building business - you fund the work, then wait to be paid. Lenders focus almost entirely on whether you can survive the gap.
- Contract pipeline, retention & the payment-terms gap - retentions held 12+ months are a real cash line
- Plant and equipment finance and asset-backed lending - usually the actual funding ask
- CIS, CSCS, insurance & subcontractor liability, plus health and safety compliance cost
Property & Real Estate
Property plans are deal documents: the lender is underwriting an asset and an exit, not a business narrative. The numbers must survive a valuer, not just a reader.
- LTV, LTC and the exit strategy - refinance or sale, with a modelled date
- Development appraisal: GDV, build cost, contingency & finance cost - 10%+ contingency or it is not credible
- Void periods, yield assumptions & stress-tested interest rates - the first sensitivity anyone asks for
Logistics & Transport
Margins are thin and fixed costs are heavy, so a logistics plan is really a utilisation model. Fuel and driver cost swings can erase a year of profit, and lenders know it.
- Cost per mile, load factor & empty-running percentage - utilisation is the whole business
- Operator licence, tachograph and driver-hours compliance, and fleet maintenance
- Fuel price sensitivity and contract vs spot mix - needs an explicit scenario, not an average
Beauty, Wellness & Fitness
This sector runs on retention and floor utilisation, and it's the single most common franchise category - so the plan often has to satisfy a franchisor as well as a bank.
- Membership churn, retention & lifetime value - 8% monthly churn is a different business from 3%
- Chair, room or floor utilisation and the capacity ceiling - the physical revenue cap
- Franchise fees, territory rights & royalty structure, which dominate the P&L where they apply
Professional Services & Consulting
Service firms sell time, so the plan must prove the time is billable and the pipeline is real. It's also the most common vehicle for visa applications, where scalability beyond the founder is the assessed criterion.
- Utilisation rate, blended day rate & realisation - billable hours and paid hours are not the same number
- Pipeline concentration and key-person dependency - client concentration above ~30% is a flagged risk
- The leverage model - how it scales past the founder, which is exactly what an endorsing body asks
Manufacturing & Industrial
Manufacturing plans are capex-heavy and payback-driven, which makes them natural grant and asset-finance candidates. The plan must connect machine time to money.
- Unit cost build, throughput & OEE - cost per unit at realistic, not nameplate, capacity
- Capex schedule, machine payback period & depreciation - the core of the funding ask
- Supply chain concentration, lead times & raw material price exposure - single-supplier risk is the standard challenge
Hospitality & Tourism
Hospitality is seasonal, so an annual average hides everything that matters. The plan must survive the low season on paper before anyone funds the high one.
- Occupancy, ADR & RevPAR modelled by season - monthly, never annualised
- Seasonality and the off-season cash reserve - the months you lose money must be shown losing money
- Licensing, ratings and OTA dependency - 15-20% commission is a margin line, not a marketing line
Agriculture & Agri-Food
Agriculture runs on cycles far longer than a normal cash flow, and it's one of the most grant-dependent sectors in the UK and EU - so plans are frequently written to a funder's scoring matrix.
- Yield per hectare, crop or livestock cycle & the harvest-to-cash lag - cash flow may have one inflow a year
- Subsidy and grant income streams, modelled separately from trading income with eligibility stated
- Weather, disease & commodity price risk - the scenario analysis is mandatory, not optional
Not on the list?
These twelve are the sectors we're asked for most - they're not a limit. The plan is written from your brief, so what actually matters is how clearly you describe how your business makes money. Tell us it's a mobile dog-grooming van or a specialist reinsurance broker and the plan is written about that.
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