Should I use business plan software?

As a new business owner at some point you will get the task of creating a business plan. Using the various business plan software programs available on the market today may be a great way to kick start this process but you need to ensure that you have thought about the benefits and drawbacks of using the many business plan templates and options that these may provide.

Lets have a look at the issues to consider.

The Benefits

A well-made business plan software program can take the raw material of your ideas and numbers and arrange these into a standard business plan template. This can be an incredible time saver, especially to create pro format financial statements for the company. Your knowledge of the accounting that goes into financial statements can be very limited in this case, as the software should talk you through what you need to decide and then generate the statements automatically.

A good piece of software should offer some ability to customize the look of the plan and to use terms specific to the type of company (product or service, consumer or business sales, etc.) It should allow you to edit the narrative to improve the wording if it is generated automatically.

The Drawbacks

At the end of the day, the integrity of the narrative of the plan and the logic of the ideas within rely on you and only you. As the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out". If you are uncertain about the feasibility of your basic concept, how to research the market opportunity, or where to find your startup costs, you need expert help from a business plan consultant or a partner with a more business acumen. If you don't know what you are doing with the company, business plan software will only help you write a plan faster, but can't make your launch successful or improve your chances of raising funds.

Furthermore, the ability of any piece of software to customize your plan will be limited to a certain extent. Software may also offer a basic version and a premium version in an attempt to hook users at a low price and then up-sell them when they realize they cannot make basic changes to the look or content of the plan. Look out for these types of arrangements and evaluate the success real clients have had finding funding with plans produced by the software to know if it is worthy.

Keep reading our help articles to learn even more about how to format a business plan.