Business Plan Software Review: Ultimate Business Planner?

One of the main reasons business owners and entrepreneurs use business plan software is to simplify building their financial models. Even with an explosion in business plan software packages on the market today, "doing the financial projections" is still often cited as the most difficult part of completing a business plan. Yet, software can still simplify financial forecasting.

The question is: Which software?

Ultimate Business Planner has been touted as a dynamic, interactive planning tool that takes the drudgery out of complex, time-consuming financial forecasting and business planning. It combines easy-to-use software functions with a step-by-step approach to create a business plan.

It is designed for those individuals or businesses in need of getting a business plan done fast. The Ultimate Business Planner prides itself on being the fastest and easiest way to write a winning business plan.

Atlas Business Solutions, Inc. (ABS), developer of the business planning technology in QuickBooks® Premier 2005 and the maker of Ultimate Business Planner, is a well-respected and established business software development company. Their products are top rated and are priced moderately.

So, let's check it out?

Step-by-step approach with five manageable sections

The Ultimate Business Planner breaks the business planning process into five manageable sections: Company, Income, Expenses, Interview and Plan.

The first four sections gather information to prepare and complete your financial forecast. Interactive dialogs with plain-English instructions, questions and fill-in the blanks capture information and build your company profile. Income and expense worksheets enable you to define income and expense categories and project monthly amounts with easy to use forecasting functions.

There are three methods you can use to enter your monthly income or expense data: manually or cell-by-cell, automatically - using a combination of the worksheet functions to project amounts for you based on your assumptions, or importing/copy paste - take data from your files if you are using QuickBooks Pro/Premier/Enterprise 2003 (or later) or simply copying and pasting data from an MS Excel worksheet.

The fifth section provides several tools to write a business plan including: a business plan outline to guide you step-by-step in writing your business plan, topic guides and example tabs that explain what you should include in each topic with examples of each, and a powerful, easy to use text editor for entering and editing your text.

Includes help functions, advice and how-to hints to
overcome most business plan obstacles

The package includes many help functions for advice and how-to hints to overcome the many obstacles to writing a successful business plan. For example, refer to the twenty-five industry-specific sample business plans for suggested wording, or to copy-and-paste select phrases or sections directly into your business plan to breakthrough writers block quickly. Or, there are many financial wizards available to calculate loan amounts, interest rates, monthly payments, depreciation, amortization and more.

Complete the sections and
Ultimate Business Planner does the rest

With Ultimate Business Plan, you are free to complete each section in the order you choose. Then, when the sections are complete the Ultimate Business Planner does the rest. It evaluates the financial viability of your business ideas or strategies quickly and easily; creates complete financial statement projections (for up to 36 months) to show to your bankers or other potential investors; and, produces a professional report in ever respect including graphs to highlight the potential of your business plan.

Change scenarios for
intelligent, informed decisions

Changing scenarios is easy with the Ultimate Business Planner. For example, to quickly see how hiring more employees or adding a new product affects your bottom line simply go to period and change the amount. The software will automatically update all the related financial statements, charts and tables. In short, the Ultimate Business Planner allows you to see how your bottom line is affected by unlimited business situations.

What's missing?

Three things I wish the Ultimate Business Planner would do. First, allow users the option to enter historical financial data (an important option if you are an established business). Second, either extend or allow users the option to extend the forecast period to five years (a common time horizon for venture capitalist and equity sponsors). Third, allow users to vary gross margin assumptions on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis (in version 3.0 material, labor and overhead assumptions remain fixed throughout the entire three-year forecast period).

But don't let these things hold you back from trying the Ultimate Business Planner. You can easily work around them and the time and ease of use in other areas more than offsets these shortcomings.

For example, to include historical financial data, you can export your projections to Excel and then add the needed history directly into MS Excel®. If you want a five-year projection, simply create a new file that begins with the ending balances forecasted in your original three-year plan and do the addition two-year projection in the new file. Then, you can merge the original three-year plan with the extended plan using MS Excel®. If you want to vary the gross margin assumptions over the forecast period, you can create separate product categories for the same product and vary the material, labor and overhead as a percentage of sales for each product category and related period.

Go to the demo?

All direct purchases of the Ultimate Business Planner from ABS are backed by their 90-day unconditional, money-back guarantee (excluding upgrades which are nonrefundable). To help you evaluate whether the Ultimate Business Planner is right for you, Business Plan Secrets Revealed has prepared a section-by-section demonstration that can be viewed at http://www.business -plan-secrets-revealed.com/business-plan-software.html

The Ultimate Business Planner is a pretty simple business planning software to use. It's a quick and useful business planner that produces a well-written and organized business plan. At $99.00, it's worth giving it a shot.

Mike Elia is a chief financial officer and an advisor to venture capitalists and leverage buyout specialists. His business plan ebook "Business Plan Secrets Revealed" shows how to make your business the most appealing investment choice to venture capitalists, bankers, and other business investors. For his free business plan guide click here.

---

Microsoft CRM or Siebel

Siebel is traditional CRM market leader, however and mostly due... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains implementation: Restaurants Supply Chain Management Example

Microsoft Great Plains serves majority of US based horizontal and... Read More

Think Of This

Think of this, first we had the HAM Radio, then... Read More

Microsoft CRM Implementation & Remote Support

We would like to give you pluses and minuses of... Read More

Software Automation Helps Increase your Bottom Line

When you own a small business, time is money. And... Read More

Integrating Microsoft Great Plains Accounting/ERP: RMS, CRM, eCommerce, Lotus Domino ? overview

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share among... Read More

Software Upgrades Arent Always the Best Move

When my daughter was getting into AOL instant messaging (AIM)... Read More

Microsoft CRM in Latin America: Implementation, Customization, Support ? Overview for Consultant

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM is present several years on the... Read More

Helping Newbies Understand Professional Software

The Windows registry is a huge database that ensures normal... Read More

It?s Back!! WordPerfect?s Amazing Comeback

Have you noticed WordPerfect is gearing up for a comeback... Read More

Huddle Up; Groupware on Three

It could just be me, but my experiences with document... Read More

Best Practices In Choosing Network Monitoring Software

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Hawaii (HMSA) found itself... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains eCommerce ? Stored Procedures Approach

Since Version 8.0 Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains & Great... Read More

Off The Record - Tips For Picking Recording Software

Need software to record your voice, streaming audio or musical... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains FA: Fixed Assets ? Overview For Consultant

Great Plains Fixed Assets Management module is a robust tool... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains version 8.5: Upgrade, Customization, VBA, Crystal Reports - Highlights

Microsoft Great Plains is one of the Microsoft Business Solutions... Read More

Microsoft Navision Customization Upgrade ? Tips For Programmer/IT Specialist

Currently Microsoft Business Solutions is on the way of creating... Read More

Programming Environments And The Software Production Process

Introduction: The creating of a computer program involves a number... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains: Service Business Customization & Integration Example

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains might be considered as ERP... Read More

What is Preventive Maintenance Software?

Preventive Maintenance (PM) is defined as scheduled work done on... Read More

Great Plains Dexterity Programming ? Overview For Developer

Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular,... Read More

Five Reasons for Using an O/R Mapping Tool

So, why should you use any O/R mapping tool? I... Read More

The Dreaded Paper Label - Should it be Used?

While paper labeling CDs and DVDs may appear to be... Read More

Running a Program on a Remote Server Using SSH

How do you run a program on a remote server... Read More

Great Plains Accounting Migration to Microsoft Great Plains - Overview for IT Specialist

This is a short article, written in question/answer/FAQ style to... Read More

How to Tell You Have Spyware, Ad-ware or Viruses

Usually, the easiest way to tell you have spyware is... Read More

Software Companies: Generate New Revenue Streams and Decrease Costs with Custom e-Learning Content

It's no secret that software companies operate in a very... Read More

The Death of Windows

I have always regretted how Microsoft price gouges and rips... Read More

New SQL Delta Version 3.1

COMMAND LINE FUNCTIONA powerful command line script processor has been... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains IV: Inventory Management

Great Plains Inventory Management (IV) module gives your business a... Read More

eConnect: eCommerce Development for Microsoft Great Plains

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has several options to enable... Read More

Pros and Cons of Using FREE Software in Your Business

Itâ??s easy to understand why you might be drawn to... Read More

Understanding Document Management

The term "document management" and "paperless office" is the subject... Read More