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When starting a business, one of the first and most critical points to address is identifying all the potential costs you will face. These include both the start-up costs and the ongoing costs.

Start-up costs are the initial outlays when setting up your business. These are one-off costs that occur before your business begins trading. Typical start-up costs include shop fit-outs, factory and office setup, equipment and machinery purchases, office supplies, business and other registrations, licence and permit fees, along with any legal costs.

Ongoing costs are the recurring costs necessary to run and maintain the business. These costs include items such as wages and on-costs, mortgage/rent, electricity expenses, insurance and advertising costs.

It is also very important to consider including an allowance or "float" as working capital for the early stages where you may not necessarily be generating enough revenue to cover all your costs.

Once you have obtained this information, you will be able to prepare a detailed budget that covers the start-up costs, ongoing costs and initial working capital requirements so you can calculate your overall financing requirements.

To assist you in determining your total finance requirements, you can download a start-up cost calculator at finance.gov.au.