Translate a Business Plan in Excel into English

What happens to your workbook

A spreadsheet business plan combines labels (assumptions, row headings, notes typed into cells, table footnotes) with calculations. Manuce translates the labels and leaves the calculations alone.

• A French row heading such as Chiffre d'affaires HT becomes Revenue (excl. VAT), while the total next to it keeps its SUM formula and recalculates when an assumption changes.
• Amounts, growth rates and dates stay exactly as they are: nothing is retyped.
• Every sheet is processed: assumptions, projected profit and loss, cash flow forecast, funding plan, headcount table.

Column widths, colours, borders, number formats, filters and merged cells come back intact. An investor can change a pricing assumption in the English version and watch the forecast move, which a translated PDF cannot offer.

Financial English in a business plan

Accounting vocabulary does not map word for word from other languages, and English itself has two traditions:

• Profit and loss account in British usage, income statement in American.
• Turnover is common in the UK; revenue or sales elsewhere.
• Financial year 2026 (British) versus fiscal year 2026 (American).
• Source-language acronyms rarely have an English equivalent. The French BFR has to be written out as working capital requirement; tax shorthand such as HT/TTC becomes excl. VAT / incl. VAT.

Coming from French, English text usually runs 10 to 15% shorter, which gives labels more room. Expanded acronyms are the exception: three letters can turn into three words and overflow a narrow column.

English plurals have just two forms (1 employee, 3 employees). If a label is assembled inside a formula, it will not be translated (see below). British and American English also differ in spelling and date order, so check the free extract to confirm the variant suits your readers.

What Manuce returns, and what it leaves out

You receive your original .xlsx with the text replaced in place, plus a Word version, a PDF and plain text, handy for reviewing terminology in one pass. A typical business plan of around 7,000 words is delivered in a few minutes and stays available in your client area.

Not translated:

• Sheet tab names, such as Hypothèses or Trésorerie. Rename them yourself; Excel updates formulas that refer to them.
• Charts, and shapes or text boxes placed on the sheet. A chart title or legend linked to a cell will follow the translated cell; one typed directly stays in the source language.
• Cell comments.
• Text inside a formula, such as =IF(C12<0,"Besoin de financement","Excédent"): the formula is not modified, so its strings stay as they are.

Narrow columns are not widened, so a longer label may be cut off on screen, just as in the original. Manuce does not produce sworn or certified translations; if an authority requires one for your business plan, you will need an accredited translator.

Figures, currencies and dates stay put

Numbers remain numbers. Excel displays them according to the cell format and, for standard formats, the reader's regional settings: a figure shown as 1 234,56 on a French machine generally appears as 1,234.56 on one set to English, with no change to the file.

• An amount typed as text ("45 000 €") is not a number; it will not recalculate or reformat.
• A € sign or k€ suffix built into a number format stays: the currency is deliberately not converted.
• 03/04/2026 reads as 3 April in the UK but 4 March in the US. For American readers, a format with the month spelt out or 2026-04-03 removes the ambiguity.

Preparing the workbook and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Move labels that need translating out of formulas: put "Besoin de financement" in a cell and reference that cell, which will then be translated.
• Move important notes kept in comments or text boxes into cells.
• Check that amounts are real numbers, not text.

After delivery:

• Change an assumption (growth rate, average price) and confirm the totals update.
• Scan heading columns for truncated labels and widen where needed.
• Rename the tabs and fix any chart titles that were typed by hand.
• Review business-specific terms in the Word version, for instance a product name that should stay in its original language.

In practice

1. Move translatable labels out of formulas and make sure amounts are stored as numbers.
2. Upload the .xlsx: the quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count.
3. Read the free extract to judge the financial wording and English variant.
4. Download the translated workbook, test an assumption, then rename tabs and adjust charts.