Translate a business plan into Italian

What changes when a business plan goes into Italian

Italian runs slightly longer than English, so tight headings and table cells are worth a check, but most of the real differences sit in the figures and conventions.

• Separators: Italian uses a full stop for thousands and a comma for decimals. €1,250,000.50 becomes 1.250.000,50 € or € 1.250.000,50. A table left in English format makes a reader second-guess the order of magnitude.
• The euro does not change in the plural: 10 euro, never « 10 euros ».
• Large numbers in words: « €2 million » is 2 milioni di euro, with the preposition di, whereas 2.500.000 euro takes none. This is the case Italian's many plural category exists to handle.
• Dates: 31/12/2026, day first, with months in lower case (gennaio, dicembre).
• Accents: è (« is ») takes a grave accent; perché and affinché take an acute. Italian readers notice the difference at once.
• Register: the reader is addressed with the formal Lei, and headings capitalise only the first word.

The financial terminology to expect

Business plans are handled by Métis, Manuce's finance specialist engine. These are the equivalents you should find in the Italian version:

• profit and loss account / income statement → conto economico
• balance sheet → stato patrimoniale
• cash flow statement → rendiconto finanziario
• EBITDA → MOL (margine operativo lordo), though EBITDA itself is widely used
• working capital → capitale circolante netto
• break-even point → punto di pareggio
• revenue / turnover → fatturato; VAT → IVA

Foreign company forms (Ltd, GmbH, SAS) have no exact match among Italian S.r.l. and S.p.A. entities, so the usual practice is to keep the original. If an acronym or product name must stay unchanged, check it in the free sample and again in the delivered translation.

What Manuce returns, and what it does not do

Upload the plan as Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF or CSV. The quote appears straight away, based on the exact word count; a typical plan of around 7,000 words (25 pages) is delivered within minutes, in the same format and with the same layout. Italian is charged at the base rate (×1 coefficient).

Before you pay, one paragraph of your file is translated free at the level you choose: pick one that contains figures and a term such as « working capital » to judge the result. For a document going to a bank or investor, the Professional level is the one intended for sending out.

• Scanned PDFs: a PDF that is only an image, with no selectable text, cannot be read. Start from the source file.
• No sworn translation: if an Italian authority or chamber of commerce requires a traduzione asseverata, Manuce does not provide it.
• No rewriting: your market assumptions, pricing and competitor analysis are translated, not adapted to the Italian market.

Preparing the file and checking the Italian version

A little preparation saves most of the corrections.

• Excel forecasts: a number typed as text ('1,250,000) stays frozen in that format, whereas a true number displays according to the reader's regional settings. Check which cells are text before uploading.
• Charts pasted as images: their labels are not translated. Use editable charts, or plan to rebuild them.
• Units: « k€ » and « €m » are understood, but Italian tables often state migliaia di euro in the header; check the same convention is used throughout.
• Final read: check totals, dates and percentages (Italian commonly writes 15% with no space), and have an Italian speaker read the executive summary if the plan supports a funding request.

In practice

1. Export the business plan from its source file (Word, PowerPoint or Excel), not from a scanned PDF.
2. Upload it to Manuce, select Italian and review the quote based on the exact word count.
3. Check the free sample on a paragraph containing figures before paying.
4. Download the translated file from your account and check figures, dates and financial terms.