Monthly Business Plan Review Template Overview

“Good business planning is 9 parts execution for every 1 part strategy.” – Tim Berry

A monthly review meeting is a necessary time set aside for you and your team members to step back and take a look at the current progress you’ve made and compare that to your ideal performance. Typically, a monthly review business meeting runs around one to two hours, and you’ll want to spend it picking apart your business strategy while reviewing your financial status and making adjustments based on company performance.

Monthly business plan review meetings (held monthly) should be a fixture of your management strategy, as it’s one of the most effective ways for you to grow your company and adjust the trajectory as needed. Business planning isn’t a one-time event, and instead, it’s a process where companies should constantly review where they stand. These meetings are one of the best ways to stay on track and help businesses of every size experience growth.

Who you invite to your monthly business plan meeting is up to you. Whether you make it a company-wide affair or invite select leadership members, you’ll want to ensure they all have a copy of the monthly business review template so they can follow along and add the necessary input before the meeting.

How to Run an Effective Monthly Business Plan Review Meeting

Running an effective monthly business plan review meeting comes down to preparation. Because these meetings happen monthly, it’s easy for leaders to set a schedule regarding meeting preparation and the effort that goes into it. A business plan review template can be a lifesaver when preparing for monthly business plan meetings because you’ll have an outline to refer to that remains consistent.

When you have a meeting template to refer to, you can map out the amount of time you’d like to spend on each section, ensuring that your meeting doesn’t run over the time available. Meetings are notorious for being unnecessary, so filling the time with content that matters is crucial. Feedback from meeting attendees on past sessions, and the topics they want to include in future meetings, can be highly beneficial.

When you fill in your monthly business plan review template, you’ll want to ensure that you’re presenting information in a way that aligns team members to work toward a collective goal. Make it easy to understand on various company levels, avoiding vocabulary that relates to one department only, such as marketing or development.

What’s inside this Monthly Business Plan Review Template:

Focusing on these components will help you create a successful and comprehensive outline for every monthly business plan review meeting.

1 Review Financial Statements

Finances are one of the most critical monthly business plan review topics. Begin the meeting by reviewing financial statements and reading back any notes you’ve written down regarding them. You can ask for input from others here or ask them to save it until the end.

However, it’s easier to hash out a plan when you focus on one topic at a time. Don’t be afraid to open up the floor to financial input, especially from accounting and analytics leaders.

Let’s review some of our monthly financial statements.

• Profit and loss
• Cash flow
• Revenue breakdown
• Expenses and costs

2 Review the Budget

You’re headed for trouble if you’re not sticking to your budget. Reviewing the business budget monthly is an essential part of running a successful company. The budget review section needs to include information on how the funding can evolve and what steps you have to take to make that happen. Also, it should cover how you can expand or pull back expenses for the following month, depending on which is necessary.

Are we staying within our budget, what is the financial forecast for the upcoming months?

3Upcoming Projects

The upcoming projects section should focus on what’s next for your company in the coming month. What projects will wrap up and begin in the next four weeks, and what impact do leaders expect those projects to have? Consistent updates on company projects for all company leaders can help everyone work toward an aligned goal.

Large projects and initiatives coming up that we should have visibility on.

4 Long-term Goals and Strategy

While you probably review some of the same goals at every monthly business plan review meeting, it remains vital to a company’s internal infrastructure. Reminding employees of long-term goals (and why they should care) is crucial to your imminent success.

When we go with the daily flow of life, especially at work, we tend to forget why our work has a purpose and what that purpose is. A business plan review meeting brings that purpose back to the surface, realigning focus and renewing employee outlooks.

Review the business’ strategy and goals to ensure they still align with the business model, modify if necessary.

5 Issues and Resolution

“Good intentions might sound nice, but it’s positive actions that matter.” – Tim Fargo

You’ll want to open up the discussion for this section to gather all the issues that currently affect your company from your leadership employees. You can successfully work toward a resolution when problems are out in the open. It’s essential not to slap a band-aid on new or recurring issues, making sure you work as a team to get to the root of the problem and create a resolution plan moving forward.

Bring forward any issues or potential roadblocks so we can get ahead of the problem.