The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends a traditional plan format with nine sections. SBA-backed lenders — 7(a), 504 and microloan — read that format looking for one thing above all: whether the cash flow supports the debt service.
The SBA's traditional format is deliberately conventional: executive summary, company description, market analysis, organization and management, service or product line, marketing and sales, funding request, financial projections, and appendix. Follow the order — lenders look for each section where it normally sits.
An SBA-backed loan is underwritten by a bank, not by the SBA, and the underwriter's core test is repayment capacity: projected cash flow covering the proposed debt service with a margin, usually a coverage ratio above roughly 1.15 to 1.25.
The recurring failures are mechanical: revenue growing steeply while costs stay flat, a use-of-funds total that does not match the requested loan amount, no monthly cash-flow detail, and projections that contradict the narrative. These are consistency problems, and a generated plan whose statements are calculated from the same inputs as the text avoids them.
The plan is one part of the application. Your lender will also require SBA forms, tax returns, personal financial statements and, depending on the programme, collateral documentation.