Guides: Business: Costs & Profits

What are your estimated costs and sales forecasts?

SME Toolkit: Budgeting & Forecasting
This website from IFC (International Finance Corporation, of the World Bank) includes a variety of business forms and worksheets to help you to prepare a budget and forecast cash flow, gross profit margin, etc.
Bottom-Up Sales Forecasting (MaRS Discovery District)
(a member of the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs) Features a workbook to assist entrepreneurs through the process of creating sales forecasts.

Canadian Financial Data

Financial Performance Data (Industry Canada site)
This interactive financial performance tool will help you determine the industry norms and benchmarks for your business. With Financial Performance Data you can create reports of financial data based on Canadian tax returns. You can search by keyword or browse the NAICS code (lookup tool) for an industry. Retrieve data regarding revenues & expenses, balance sheet items, financial ratios, & profitability information. It covers both incorporated and unincorporated small businesses ranging in revenue from $30,000 to $5,000,000.

U.S. Financial Data Sources (Internal Revenue Service):

Sole Proprietorship (Nonfarm) Statistics (IRS)
The Sole Proprietorship study covers basic data, including business receipts, deductions, and net income reported by an individual taxpayer. It is broken down by NAICS sector.

These sources, from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, provide business tax statistics on small business entities such as sole proprietorships and partnerships. Other tax statistics are available for corporations, according to the type of tax return which was filed with the IRS.

Partnership statistics (IRS)
Data from tax returns filed by partnerships (defined as a relationship between two or more persons who join to carry on a trade or business). Data presented includes assets, income, deductions and net income. Statistical tables are available by sector or industry, by size of total assets.
Tax Statistics (IRS)
Provides links to all the tables, articles, and data that is available from the IRS for businesses as well as individuals.