First, I feel I need to put a disclamer. Because I am advertising one particular software in this post, which also happens to have a banner in the sidebar next to it. I want to say that this post is not meant to be biased, and that I genuinely feel it is a great tool. But like any tool, it must remain a tool. It will not do it for you. You still must do your research, know your industry, and have business sense to produce a good working business plan. Bottom line, no software in the world can help you if you do not know what you are writing about.

If there is one thing I advocate a lot, is that if you do decide to use software for your business plan that you do not think it is going to do the work for you! I admittedly use software for my business plans. However! I use them as a tool, not an easy button. The market is pretty much dominated by one company, Palo Alto Software. Their software, Business Plan Pro is very good if used correctly. Again, you can not expect it to do it for you.

When I wrote my first business plan I had Business Plan Pro at my disposal, but I said to myself… There is no way this software is worth its weight. So I didn’t touch it for awhile. I developed my business plan essentially all in OpenOffice Writer. Designed, organized, the whole nine. Then I took a step back and said let me take a few days away from it, I’ve been writing and working on this for a few weeks. When I went back to it and had pages of changes I realized I needed to make this became a huge hassle.

I finally decided I was going to give software a go. I loaded up Business Plan Pro and basically started copy and pasting from Writer. This was good. I could easily change things. It handled the table of contents and organization for me. A BIG plus! Because all of the anchors and links going on in my doc file were just confusing the hell out of me.

There are a few things I feel are cons about Business Plan Pro, but they are somewhat miniscule as you can get around them.

First, the tables look awful. There needs to be more control over design. I use tables when doing SWOT’s occasionally and I end up having to work around it. Which I will explain how to towards the end of this.

Second, again design related. There isn’t a lot you can do to the charts as far as color and layout. This goes for graphic charts that Business Plan Pro generates as well. They basically come in one flavor.

Here is how I worked around it: Business Plan Pro allows you the option to export into different types of files. Export your plan (once you are well done! or this will become annoying.) into a .doc file. Then open it in your favorite word processor, remove the charts, tables, whatever else you plan on changing. Remake them.

Not so marvel, but unless someone knows of a better way, you are stuck remaking. That did give me a lot of control though, and it really helps when you are working with something that is more than a plain layout. If you’re business plan is for, say a graphic design firm. Obviously you are heavy on visuals and everything needs to work together. Then again, you would probably already be remaking yours if you were a graphic designer, huh?

That’s not to say the charts don’t look decent, they do. But I suggest you follow a color or design scheme with your business plan, and unless the standard colors match.. you should look into changing them. But if you aren’t that computer savvy, it’s not the end of the world if they don’t match. They are charts.

Give me a few days and I will be posting a formal review of a few different business plan programs. For now, arrivederci!