MASLOC Business Plan — What the Template Must Contain Before You Apply

MASLOC (the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre) remains one of the most accessible sources of small-business capital in Ghana — and one of the most oversubscribed. The difference between an application that moves and one that sits is usually the business plan. Loan officers see hundreds; they can tell within a page whether yours describes a real business or a wish.

What the plan must contain

A MASLOC-ready plan does not need to be long. It needs to be complete. Section by section:

1. Business summary — what you sell, to whom, where, and since when. One page maximum. If the business already operates, say so with numbers: "I have sold smoked fish at Bolga Market for four years, averaging GHS 250 in sales per market day."
2. The applicant — who you are, your experience in this trade, and your Ghana Card details. Lending is to a person before it is to a plan.
3. The market — who buys, how often, and who else sells the same thing. Local specifics beat textbook language: name the market, the days, the customer types.
4. The loan and its use — exactly what you will buy with the money, with current prices. "GHS 5,000 for two deep freezers (GHS 2,200 each from Melcom Bolga) and GHS 600 initial stock" is fundable. "Capital to expand the business" is not.
5. Financial projections — monthly sales, costs, and profit, projected over the loan period, showing the repayment comfortably covered. The numbers must agree with each other; the fastest rejection is a plan whose own arithmetic contradicts itself.
6. Repayment plan — the instalment amount and the cash flow that pays it, including the lean months. In the Upper East, that means being honest about the June–August farming season when market cash is tight. A plan that admits the lean season and shows the repayment still works is more credible, not less.

The five mistakes that sink applications

• Round numbers everywhere (GHS 10,000 of costs that are all multiples of 1,000 — a sign nothing was actually priced)
• Projections that ignore the season — selling the same amount in July as in December
• A loan request that doesn't match the itemised costs
• Copied templates where the previous applicant's trade is still visible in paragraph three
• No evidence the business already exists, when it does — photos, supplier names and market records all strengthen the case

Getting it written properly

At Maskil Studio we write MASLOC and microloan business plans for GHS 600 — built from an interview with you about your actual business, with real local prices and honest seasonal projections. Larger plans for bank facilities and NGO grant programmes are quoted separately. We never invent figures: if your numbers need gathering, we tell you what to collect first.

The process runs on WhatsApp: an interview (voice notes welcome), a draft within a few days, your corrections, and a clean printed-and-bound copy plus a PDF. Message us before your next MASLOC window opens — plans written in a rush the week of the deadline are the ones loan officers spot.