Palo Alto Software
Palo Alto Software - The Planning People - develops, publishes, and markets software products for use with personal computers. Our products offer task-oriented, "know how" solutions for small-business and home-office entrepreneurs, professionals, and middle managers. Our company is a privately-owned corporation in Eugene, Oregon, USA, dedicated to providing good value and good service to every customer. We currently offer these planning products:
Business Plan Pro contains all the tools you need to create a custom business plan that fits your unique needs, whether this is your first plan, or your hundred and first.
The Task List walks you through each step of creating your plan, offering help and explanations at every point. Just click "Next Task" to create your complete plan in the recommended order.
The Outline shows you every chart, table and topic in your plan, organized into common sense Sections (Introduction, Main Body, Appendix). You can insert new topics to add detail, rename or move anything in the Outline, and delete items that aren't used.
The Plan Review tool reviews your plan for completeness, and checks your financials against standard accounting and planning rules. If there is an error, or your financials appear unrealistic, the Plan Review includes specific help on fixing the problem.
The Plan Setup and Table Settings questions make sure your plan's Outline and financials match your planning needs. But you can customize much more than this:
Use Resources for Research, Funding, and more
The Resources included in your software include access to free market research resources, business -planning books in PDF format, and legal advice sites where you can determine the best structure for your business.
Get Inspiration from Samples
Hundreds of sample plans are available to show you how it's done, and give you ideas. In addition, each topic shows you examples from the sample plan library that are similar to your business, based on the settings you chose during setup.
Complete Help
Whether you need to print, or to understand "Accounts Receivable," help is just a click away. Every table spreadsheet has row-by-row definitions; every topic, table, and chart has detailed instructions; the Help Glossary defines over 250 marketing and business terms in plain English; and the complete help file, including financial concepts help for every table in your plan, has a full-text search feature.
Additional Premier Edition Key Features
More Detailed Plans
You can choose to forecast two years of monthly details instead of one, break expenses into categories like Marketing and Administrative, and explain the details of your strategy in multiple additional sub-topics, with full instructions.
Test Sensitivity with Cash Pilot
How will your Cash Balance fare if your customers are late in paying invoices? What if you need to keep more inventory on-hand? The Cash Pilot lets you test out alternate scenarios to see what changes in your assumptions will do to your business checking account.
Manage Your Plan
Your plan is only real when it gets implemented. Compare your actual results to your original plan to plot course corrections and analyze your variance. Keep your plan alive.
Additional Tables
Investment Analysis: shows NPV and IRR and for a single investor
Investment Offering: calculates shares and equity for multiple rounds of investment and stock splits
Use of Funds: simple table for listing uses and amounts of funding
Sources and Uses: indirect Cash Flow method some investors prefer
Payback: simple calculation of the time to pay back an investor with dividends, and plan additional returns after payback.
User tables: create custom tables to add more detail to your plan.
Import from Microsoft� Excel
Bring existing data from a Microsoft Excel workbook into your plan. The import brings in each selected worksheet as a new User table which you can edit and format.
Save Plan as a Template
Use your existing plan as a template from which to begin new plans. You can choose to include topic text and table numbers as part of the template.
Print or Export Quarterly Reports
Customize your Section Printing Options to print landscape sections, such as the Appendix, as Quarters and Years, instead of Monthly views.
Build an Organizational Chart
Represent your personnel and management structure visually with an organizational chart.
What's New in Business Plan Pro 11.0
Business Plan Pro 11.0 has been redesigned from the ground up, to offer you the same solid financial model, expert instructions and guidance, in a new, easier-to-use format with extra features. Here's what's new in this version:
