Boat Dealership Acquisition, Floorplan and DSCR Model – Excel XLSX

BENEFITS OF THIS DOWNLOADABLE EXCEL DOCUMENT

1. Gross profit is built department by department, new boats, used boats, F&I per deal times finance penetration, parts and service, so the mix shows that about 48% of the gross comes from F&I and fixed ops.
2. Floorplan interest is a real engine, not a plug: average inventory at cost times advance rate times floorplan rate, with days-in-stock and the rate as stressable drivers in a dedicated DSCR grid.
3. A normal marine down-cycle of minus 20% units is pushed through fixed overhead: SDE falls about 30% and a comfortable 1.55x DSCR breaks to 0.89x, the test a good-year P&L never runs.

MARINE & BOATING EXCEL DESCRIPTION

Boat Dealership Acquisition, Floorplan and DSCR Model is an Excel template (XLSX) with a supplemental PDF document available for immediate download upon purchase.

This is a lender-ready five-year model for buying a single-store boat or marine dealership with an SBA 7(a) loan. It is built around the two lines most dealership templates leave out: the boat floorplan interest and the fixed-operations absorption ratio. The premise is that a dealership is four businesses under one roof, and the iron is not where the money is.

Revenue and gross profit are built bottom-up by department: new boats, used boats, F&I priced per deal times finance penetration, and parts and service. Each department carries its own margin, so gross profit falls out of the mix rather than being assumed. In the base case the new and used iron make about 79% of revenue while the F&I and service departments make about 48% of the gross profit. That is the honest dealership thesis, and the model prices it. The revenue split tracks the public marine consolidators, with OneWater FY2025 at 62% new, 19% used, 16% service and parts, and 3% F&I.

The floorplan is modelled explicitly and kept separate from the acquisition loan, because it is a different facility carrying a different risk. Boat inventory is financed on a revolving line at roughly 100% of invoice at about 5-8%. Floorplan interest is computed as average inventory at cost times the advance rate times the floorplan rate, where average inventory equals unit cost times days-in-stock divided by 365. Days-in-stock and the floorplan rate are stressable drivers, since that is the carrying cost that explodes when rates rise and boats stop moving. Marine inventory turn averages roughly 1.0x, while a healthy dealer runs about 2.3x.

The headline is the down-cycle rather than the base case. Base-case DSCR looks comfortable at 1.55x, because the acquisition loan is small relative to cash flow and the inventory risk sits in the floorplan instead. So the model runs the test a seller's good-year P&L never will: a normal marine unit down-cycle of minus 20% volumes, and boat sales fell about 20% in 2009, pushed through fixed overhead. SDE falls by roughly 30% and DSCR drops to 0.89x. Boats are discretionary and cyclical, so the bankable story is fixed-ops absorption, floorplan discipline and the down-cycle, not a leverage-amplified cash-on-cash.

You get an 11-sheet Excel workbook that works in Google Sheets with no macros, add-ins or external links, a PDF user guide, a three-way profile toggle (outboard and pontoon, full-line and cruiser, used and fixed-ops heavy), an SBA 7(a) capital stack with the 10% injection and $5M cap checks, a real amortisation schedule, the fixed-ops absorption ratio at 73.6%, floorplan interest coverage at 10.5x, a DSCR stress grid across days-in-stock and floorplan rate, and a conservative five-year exit. Every formula is recomputed by three independent engines, 67 checks in total.

SDE margin is held at a realistic 5%, because boat dealers run thin. Units-per-store and the revenue split are industry-representative estimates drawn from OneWater and MarineMax public filings. The cash-on-cash and the 4.19x equity multiple are stated as leverage-amplified and cyclical, and there is deliberately no IRR. Educational planning tool, not financial, investment, tax or lending advice: verify the seller's tax returns, the floorplan agreement and your SBA term sheet before relying on any number.

Source: Best Practices in Marine & Boating, Integrated Financial Model Excel: Boat Dealership Acquisition, Floorplan and DSCR Model Excel (XLSX) Spreadsheet, ProformaWorks