Business Plan Pro 2004 Review

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(More customer reviews)I do business plans for others, I do several dozen every year, usually working with clients. What I like about Business Plan Pro is that we don't have to reinvent the mathematics and finance behind correct financials, and we don't worry about the mechanics, so we concentrate on the ideas of the business plan, which is far more important.
I also like the flexibility, because I don't want business plans to be cookie cutters. I've bought most of their previous versions through the years, and most of their competitors, and this one is much more flexible. You can change the outline easily, which matters a lot. You can also customize the fonts and header styles, or, if you really want to, export to Microsoft Word and customize the whole thing. I rarely use the export, and rarely recommend it, because the point of a business plan is the thinking, and the numbers, not doing complicated page layout. As it is, Business Plan Pro prints it out in a nice business-like format, with the table information and color charts so the banker can read it, essentially very much like what a business plan ought to look like.
I have one client who has worked with the Word integration in this latest version. You can have Word open and Business Plan Pro open at the same time, work in Word, and refresh your tables and go back and forth between Word and Business Plan Pro. I don't think that's worth it for most, the text in Business Plan Pro is fine, but it's there if you want it.
I also like the ability to export to an Adobe Acrobat file, so you can create a file you can send as an attachment to an email, but the recipient can't edit it. We use that a lot.
So what don't I like about Business Plan Pro? I don't like the sample plans. The package includes 400 of them. There's nothing wrong with them, really, but the trouble is that people think they can just use somebody else's sample plan, and that bothers me, although there's nothing in Business Plan Pro that says you have to use a sample plan, they say they are just examples, but . By the time you start with somebody else's sample plan, you have to change your strategy, location, management team, and so much else that its really easier to just use the plan wizard in Business Plan Pro and do your own plan. The software itself gives you a lot of examples and guidance, so I like it better without starting with a sample plan.
As you actually do a business plan, use the wizard. There are instructions for every step, basically tables and texts, so you can just guide yourself through it. The truth is doing a business plan isn't that easy, it gets fairly complex, so the step by step stuff is really valuable.
I have Windows XP and this software works fine on it. I downloaded without problems, it installed fine.

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