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.

---

Review on QuarkXpress 6.0

After almost two decades of existence, Quark has become the... Read More

ERP for Large Corporation ? New Selling Strategy

Our opinion is based on our Microsoft Business Solutions Great... Read More

Linux vs Windows Operating Systems

With so many Microsoft Windows related viruses, errors, and other... Read More

Lotus Notes Domino and Microsoft CRM Integration

Well, even if the combination might look very unusual, we... Read More

Beware of The Pirated Software E-Mail Scams!

You have gotten those E_Mails buy software at deep discounts.... Read More

Free Program Removes Spyware not Detected by Premium Security Scan

What is Spyware?Spyware monitors your surfing habits and sends the... Read More

MultiNational Corporation ERP Implementation ? Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains

If you look back to the history, you will see... Read More

COSMIC: A Small Improvement on the Symons Method

The COSMIC FP (function point) software quality metric, is no... Read More

netstat - Linux Command to Display Networking Information

In linux, one of great commands for finding out information... Read More

Run Your Own Search Engine

Our hosted solution allow you to run your own search... Read More

How To Make Good Use of Spreadsheets

Most computer users use spreadsheets software such as Microsoft Excel... Read More

Cisco Certification: Introduction To ISDN, Part IV

In part III of this ISDN primer, we learned that... Read More

Microsoft Great Plains Beverage Production & Distribution ? Implementation & Customization Highlight

Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has many years of successful... Read More

Basic Tips and tricks for Windows XP

Running Applications in Compatibility Mode With Windows XP, you can... Read More

Making The Decision To Automate Your Software Testing

Not every software testing project can or should be automated.... Read More

Microsoft CRM: Implementation, Customization, Support ? Consultant Overview

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

Microsoft Navision Integration with Microsoft RMS - Overview for IT Specialist

Microsoft Business Solutions Navision serves both European and American megamarkets.... Read More

Microsoft CRM ? Typical Customizations

Microsoft CRM was designed to be easily customizable. Microsoft CRM... Read More

Perfectly New Database Query Tool - Foxy SQL Pro Released

Are you a database professional? Do you work with a... Read More

Preventive Maintenance Software Companies

Several software companies design programs for preventive maintenance. Most of... Read More

The Opera Alternative

Security flaws have long plagued Internet Explorer (IE), the market-dominating... Read More

eStore Advantage ? Extending Microsoft eConnect for MBS Great Plains

eStore Advantage allows front-office applications to communicate with back-office business... Read More

What to Do if All Screensavers Fun is Grayed Out?

Finally, you have some time to personalize your desktop with... Read More

IT Strategy for Large Corporation: ERP/MRP/CRM, Unix/Linux/Windows, Microsoft/Java

Combining Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains ERP with non-Microsoft Business... Read More

Linux Vs. Windows

This article will not attempt to advocate the use of... Read More

Most Common Ways to Accumulate Spyware (where It is Downloaded to Your PC)

It is possible that if one avoided all sources of... Read More

Crystal Reports For Microsoft RMS ? Overview For Developer/Report Designer

If you are software developer or database administrator - we... Read More

Five Tips For A Great Software Demo

Whether you need to close a sale, gather end-user feedback,... Read More

Microsoft CRM and No-Frills Cadillacs

In today's business world it's all but impossible to escape... Read More

Two Reasons to Use Timesheet Software

This short paper will expand on two key reasons to... Read More

Recovering Microsoft Great Plains Customization ? Tips for IT Director

Remember nice and prosperous Clinton era? When you implemented innovative... Read More

C++ Tutorials: 3, Program Flow (If, Else, While, For)

Program Flow is what you think it is. How the... Read More

Why do Manufacturers Invest in Business Management Software?

With many manufacturing shops heading over seas in favor of... Read More