Projection Report Across Chennai

Schedule III prescribes the format in which a company's Balance Sheet and Statement of Profit & Loss must be presented. Provisional and projected financials given to a bank are drawn up in this same Division I (or Ind AS Division II) format so that assets, liabilities, equity and results are classified consistently and are comparable with the audited statements filed with the MCA. Schedule III governs presentation and disclosure only; it does not itself require any borrower to prepare projections. It is an appraisal-support document, not a statutory filing.

AS 1 requires that significant accounting policies (revenue recognition, depreciation, inventory valuation, etc.) be disclosed. In a provisional statement, which is un-audited and drawn up before the year-end close, the accountant should state that the figures are provisional, are compiled from books of account not yet audited, and follow the same policies that will apply to the final audited accounts. Clear AS 1 disclosure prevents a lender from mistaking un-audited provisional figures for audited results.

AS 3 (Ind AS 7 for larger companies) sets out how cash flows are split into operating, investing and financing activities. The projected cash-flow and the CMA fund-flow statement (CMA Form VI) borrow this structure so a banker can see whether projected operations generate enough cash to service the proposed loan. AS 3 is a presentation standard for actual statements; when it is used for forward projections the figures are estimates and should be labelled as such, never presented as audited cash flows.

SRS 3400 is the ICAI Standard on Related Services that governs how a practitioner examines and reports on prospective financial information — forecasts and projections. It requires the accountant to check that assumptions are reasonable and consistent, that the projection is properly prepared on those assumptions, and it mandates a caveat that actual results will differ because events frequently do not occur as expected. It expressly warns against expressing an opinion that the projection will be achieved. This is the correct professional basis for signing off projected financials.

The RBI Master Direction on lending to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector consolidates the credit-appraisal expectations banks apply to MSME borrowers. It is the reason a bank asks an applicant for provisional financials (current position), projected financials (repayment capacity) and CMA data (working-capital computation). The Direction binds banks, not borrowers; a borrower has no statutory duty to file these, but must supply them to obtain and retain a facility.

The Tandon Committee (1975) and Chore Committee (1979) recommendations established the working-capital-gap approach still embedded in CMA data. Method II — finance up to 75% of the working-capital gap with the borrower funding a 25% margin, targeting a current ratio of about 1.33:1 — is computed in CMA Form V (MPBF). These are RBI-derived appraisal norms adopted through bank credit policy; they are not a statute, and different banks apply them with local discretion.

The Nayak Committee (1991) simplified working-capital assessment for smaller units: for aggregate fund-based limits up to Rs.5 crore the working-capital requirement is taken at 25% of projected annual turnover, of which the bank funds 20% and the borrower contributes a 5% margin. Because it keys the limit directly to projected turnover, a realistic, defensible turnover projection is critical — inflating projected sales inflates the notional entitlement but collapses under the bank's own turnover verification.

Section 129 requires financial statements to give a true and fair view and Section 143 governs their statutory audit. Provisional financials given to a bank are, by definition, un-audited interim figures; once the statutory audit is completed the audited statements supersede them. A borrower should expect the bank to reconcile the earlier provisional numbers against the final audited accounts, and a material unexplained variance can trigger re-appraisal or a review of the sanctioned limit.