Create a business analysis – including a free BWA template!

Do you actually know how much sales your company has generated in the past few months? And how many of these expenses reduce your income? Read here how a business evaluation (BWA) gives you a better overview and how you can easily create it yourself.

Table of contents:

1. Purpose of the BWA
2. BWA mandatory?
3. BWA from the tax advisor
4. Create BWA yourself
5. Free BWA template
6. BWA with GetMyInvoices

The most important answers to the topic of creating BWA at a glance:

If you always want to keep an eye on the entire financial situation of your company and ensure healthy growth, you should regularly prepare a business evaluation (BWA for short). But: You don’t like accounting at all and you don’t really know what a BWA is and how you set it up?

What is a BWA and what is it used for?

Business evaluation (BWA for short) was developed by DATEV in the 1960s. This is usually a monthly report containing data from the accounting as well as current costs and revenues from your business activities. Different than that Annual financial statements and the Balance sheet, the BWA is usually prepared once a month or quarterly.

The BWA is an important instrument for planning, managing and monitoring individual company areas, especially for start-ups and SMEs. With their help, you get a detailed insight into the economic situation of your company, always keep an eye on your finances and can quickly take the right measures if necessary.

Tip: External stakeholders such as investors, banks and lenders, as well as suppliers, also require a regularly prepared BWA in order to better assess the economic situation of your company. As part of a creditworthiness check, the BWA is actually the most important information tool for evaluating loans in accordance with Section 18 of the KWG.

Is it mandatory to create a BWA?

The short answer: no! The BWA is a voluntary report without any legal requirements. However, it is advisable for every company to prepare a BWA as it forms an important tool for growth and ongoing business expenses.

Because of its topicality and informative value, founders and small and medium-sized companies in particular like to choose this reporting. Any weak points in the company can be identified at an early stage, such as excessive production or material costs or a monthly subscription that has not been canceled.

In order for you to be able to prepare a BWA, your company must be subject to legal accounting requirements - after all, it only contains information from the profit and loss statement (P&L) - a comparison of all of them expenditure and Yields Of your company. Those who do not keep books (e.g.Freelancers exempt from accounting requirements ), therefore do not have the necessary data for a BWA.

Have the BWA drawn up by a tax advisor – is that necessary?

Many entrepreneurs shy away from accounting and often hand over their BWA directly to an external specialist. You can usually create it yourself without any problems, because for companies with accounting requirements, the required data is already available in the financial accounting department. With an Excel spreadsheet or the right accounting software you can save the costs Tax Consultants and can create your BWA yourself with just a few clicks - and spend more time on operational business.

Read and understand your own BWA – with our cooperation partner HPRühl

Successful entrepreneurs and managing directors can read their own BWA like a children’s book. For the first steps, we recommend our partner’s video courses HPRühl. Here you will find exclusive corporate training courses that will help you manage your corporate accounting quickly and easily, even without any prior knowledge.

Would you like to create your BWA yourself? This is what you should pay attention to

Since there is no legal obligation to create a business evaluation, you are basically free to design it. Regardless of whether you create a BWA as a basis for your decision or as evidence to your shareholders, you should always focus on the meaningfulness and evaluability of the data. The basic rule is: always align your BWA with your own goals. What do you want to analyze? Why do you want to analyze it? Who do you want to analyze it for?

These components belong in a complete BWA

A BWA only contains information that can be found in your P&L. Although there is no formal requirement, these must-haves should not be missing from your BWA:

• Short-term income statement
• Liquidity calculation
• Movement balance

It is important that you record all expenses and income and ensure that they are meaningful and evaluated correctly. In short: company data is the be-all and end-all of your BWA.

What other requirements apply to a BWA?

If you would like to compare the development and growth of your company using key figures, components and numbers, the following modules will also help you:

• Previous year’s statement
• Benchmark (industry comparison)
• Comparing target and actual
• Annual overview
• graphic representation

You can define additional documentation such as schedules and time series as needed - depending on what you want to analyze.

Business evaluation template: free download

So that you don’t have to worry about complicated accounting, you can download a free BWA template here. You can then adapt this to your needs as required.