Customer Reviews

Business Plan Pro 15th Anniversary Edition [Old Version]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have had several versions of Business Plan Pro over the years, and have loved it. The new user interface in Version 11 has made it much easier to keep my business plan upt to date. I especially like that it gives you an estimate on how long each of the steps should take. It makes the whole process less daunting.

I read one of the reviews about the Tech Support at Palo Alto Software, and that made me want to post this message. I have had to call tech support in the past and they have been really good at helping me troubleshoot the issues I have come up with. I had a problem similar to the other poster in an older version, where it looked like nothing was typing into the program, and all my menus were blank. Tech Support help me find that this issue was caused by a high contrast window setting on my PC, and not something in the software. Changing my desktop appearance resolved the issue.

Having written several different business plans (and having used several different versions of Palo Alto's BP software) I have to say that Business Plan Pro has always been a great way to create business plans on the fly. It offers many different types of templates for different types of businesses. These templates are wonderful starting points for creating business plans. The Standard Edition of Business Plan Pro provides great flexibility for creating simple business plans that don't involve things like Quickbooks or Excel integration. For more complex financial tasks, you may have to spring for the Premier version.

I have recommended this software to friends and would definitely never fail to use it for any future business plans that I may have to create.

I love it. My only caution to the customer is that these templates are great jumping off points and not meant to be taken as-is. Writing a business plan is still a project ... but with the help of the BP software, it's a heck of a lot easier!

Great program for the money!

Not too long ago, I wrote a 20-page business plan just from scratch. Maybe that was a good exercise but I'll never do it again. It was too time consuming. This software makes the job easy and dramatically reduces the time versus writing from scratch.

The time saved and professionalism in using this software even once will justify the investment. After all, one does not write a business plan without intending to invest money in startup costs.

Another advantage is the completeness of a work product from Business Plan Pro 15th edition. It's doubtful one would independently design a business plan that covers as much ground without this software.

I had always thought writing business plans was tedious and therefore many people simply have it in their heads. It's mush wiser to generate a bone fide business plan, but use a software tool to save an incredible number of hours. The interview process makes the job relatively painless although you still have to make decisions.

The business knowledge side of the software seems pretty good, so I assume the creator was a good business planner. BUT they weren't good programmers. This software is garbage. Your better off doing a little research on the web, then use a word processor and Excel to create your business plan.

My complaints:
1. It's clunky. In particular it's really hard to get a handle on what is going on because the spreadsheets feed data to each other, but not in any clear manner.
2. It doesn't cut and paste cleanly with other software. For example I pasted in sections from a word document that included a trademark symbol. This software can't handle it.
3. The software functions are limited and buggy. I tried to do a find and replace to fix the trademark issue. They can find the pasted gibberish that was the trademark symbol, but can't paste their own trademark symbol. Manual correction was the only choice.
4. The online support is pretty limited. Heavy on installation info, although installation went pretty easily.
5. Some of their own tables don't fit the pages correctly. They wrap in a way to make them almost unreadable.
6. They have a task list which could have been a nice idea. However the implementation is such that it misses any additional sections or tables the wizard or the user inserts. Why? This really wouldn't have been that hard to do right.
7. When you delete a default section the task list didn't seem to figure this out either.

The good:
1. The tech support folks are pretty quick to respond. Unfortunately due to software limitations, there isn't much useful they can tell you.
2. The generated table of contents is automatic. Too bad the numbering of sections is screwed up. Each section restarts the numbering.

Glad I didn't pay list and didn't pay extra for the "premier version". I'm certainly not going to buy any other software from them.

This product was recommended to me by someone that started their own business about 5 years ago! It is very easy to use! It allows you to move through and skip around to areas you'd like to work on at specific times.

I have used Business Plan Pro in the past, and I am thrilled with the new version. I have had no problems and in fact love the new charting features.
I fell like the UI is improved and the software is a god send to my small business. I don't know what I would do if I had to struggle through business planning on my own!

I was using a friends copy of the old version (BPP 2007 Premier). I wanted my own copy and purchased this. I should have bought BPP 2007 Premier for myself. During the upgrade, BPP ignored the sections that are in Premier but not in standard. I ended up adding them myself.

The new version moves some things around, but is functionally the same as the old version. The sample plans are the same. I found printing the plan from the new BPP to be scary. The fonts don't look good and the formatting gets destroyed. Export and fix before showing your plan to anyone.

Overall, I like the program because it really helped me to make a plan. A thousand times better than looking at an outline from the SBA.

There is a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get your head wrapped around it - I recommend using the wizards for your first business plan all the way through , and then examine how its all laid out - once you see it in the whole, it's easy to go back and make your revisions. It's very well laid out, the automation of calculations is excellent, the graphs are impressive, and it produces an excellent presentation. So far, the people who have reviewed my business plan have been very impressed. Before buying I did see a few "semi-negative" reviews as to how complicated things were, how hard it was to use, but from my experience, it's very easy to use, and pretty straightforward if you follow step by step and pay attention to the documentation and examples. This is one of the better pieces of software I have ever used, and it does exactly as advertised. Worth every penny I spent and then some!

I have used Business Plan Pro for 5 years both for starting my own business and for consulting with clients who are starting businesses. The sample plans are superb - a wide variety and a solid support for anyone who may be intimidated by the process of writing a business plan.

If, like me, you buy this software CD from Amazon.com, you may have problems installing it on Windows XP Service Pack 3 (the most recent at this time).

Luckily, as long as you have the product key from the CD, you should be able to download the latest version, which will install on SP3, from Palo Alto's site.

From Palo Alto's website:

"The latest version of Business Plan Pro 11.0 will install and run in Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3).

If you're installing the software from a CD, you may not have the latest version and could encounter a message during the installation that indicates you need Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed. Downloading the latest installer from our website will resolve that problem."