Business Plan Pro 2004 [Old Version]

Other products by Palo Alto Software, Inc.

Product Features

• Test your idea with 10,000 industry profiles
• Create your plan with 400+ sample business plans
• Get funded with the preferred format
• Fastest way to write a plan
• #1 Rated and Best Selling Business Plan Software

Product Details

Product Manual [5.96mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000A4F26
• Item model number: BPW7
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 19, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,910 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #9 in	Software > Business & Office > Business Plans
  #33 in	Software > Business & Office > Business & Office Management Software

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
Your time is valuable. There are never enough hours in the day and you need to write a business plan. That's why you need Business Plan Pro 2004 to lead you through every step. The plan may be about the final document for your banker or investor, but for you it is about the process of gathering your ideas and developing and growing your business. Business Plan Pro 2004 creates a great looking document for your banker, while helping you to better understand and grow your business.

Easy To Use Tables - You estimate your numbers and the software's preformatted tables build your financial statements for you.

Easy To Use Charts - Full color charts and graphs are automatically generated and incorporated right into your plan for you.

Built-in Graphic Forecaster™ - Forecast your sales graphically on a chart and your numbers are automatically transferred to your Sales Forecast table.

Choose from 9000 Industry Profiles - Business Plan Pro 2004 gives you more industry information than any other business planning software.

Preferred Format - Business Plan Pro is based on a business plan format recognized by banks, leaders, investors, and the SBA.

Built-in Formatting - Business Plan Pro automatically merges text, tables, and charts and creates your table of contents for you.

Fits Every Industry - Business Plan Pro dynamically produces your plan outline to match your business type, as you move through the EasyPlan Wizard.

Free PowerPoint® Presentation Templates - Present your plan with confidence with a professional PowerPoint presentation with the included templates.

Import From Quickbooks - Import your financials from Intuit QuickBooks with the click of a button. Export to MS Word®, MS Excel®, PDF and HTML - Export your plan to these common formats for additional formatting and

Venture Capital Database Included - Business Plan Pro provides you with an easy, affordable way to find potential investors with more than 1,200 profiles of venture capital firms worldwide.

SBA Location Included - Small Business Administration loan application included in the software to help you get the financing you need.

Secure Online Distribution - Distribute your plan to friends, colleagues, and investors online through a secure password protected website.

Reviews and Awards Computer Shopper, October 01, 2003 Most business plan software is based around spreadsheets, leaving you to do the hard work of defining and structuring the plan on your own. Business Plan Pro takes a different approach. Its EasyPlan wizard uses a framework of a dozen relevant topics to guide you through the process. To make the job even easier, the wizard is arranged as a questionnaire. By asking pertinent questions, it prompts you for relevant information, and ensures you don't miss anything important.

Awards
PC Advisor Gold Cool Tool Award Win100 Award WinList Home Office Computing Best Buy

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

124 of 127 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why reinvent the wheel?, September 27, 2003

By	"business_planner" (Boston, MA) - See all my 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.

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This software is excellent!, October 6, 2003

By	Jamkou "jaykou" (Indianapolis, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews

I had no background in business planning before I started using this business plan pro 2004. I desperately needed to write a good business plan for my startup software company but could not afford the high prices of a business consultant. I picked up Business Plan Pro 2004 and was amazed at how creative and professional this software is. It helps you write your plan with the Wizard, step by step. The numbers make sense in your financial forecasts and they all tie together. This is one of the most effective pieces of software I have encountered to date and I use alot of software. You get everything and more for the low price it sells for. As well, the manual, resources and support Palo Alto offers is outstanding. Very happy! This is a company to emulate.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Rigid, December 18, 2003

By	Mark Tapson (UAE) - See all my reviews

I find the ideas solid and the package layout is good . It is just too rigid. You have to stay between their lines and if you deviate it becomes an "export, cut and paste thing". You cannot modify within their software. So if you have any customized charts or such like, these need to be store in a seperate file while the text etc. of the business plans is kept in the dedicate Business Plan Pro software.Overall it is not a "bad " product just not as flexible as you would want it.