LivePlan – The Ticket to Business Success

If you want to start a business, you’ve got to have a plan. LivePlan is a web-based application that entrepreneurs can use to create funding pitches, business plans, and financial statements. LivePlan guides its users through the process of developing successful business strategies, utilizing real-time account information and other digital insights to keep small and medium-size businesses on track.

Increase your odds of obtaining funding for your next venture with a professional business plan developed with LivePlan. Follow along through LivePlan’s step-by-step process, answering simple questions about your business and choosing the level of detail you want to include. As you plug your answers into LivePlan, the application will automatically make financial calculations and generate charts and infographics based on the data you’ve put together. The business plans you create with LivePlan include all the financial tables that investors expect to see, including forecast sales and projected cash flow information. Depending on your goals, you can also create one-page pitches with basic summaries of what your business has to offer.

In addition to providing entrepreneurs with a way to generate detailed business plans and investor proposals, LivePlan also offers a number of advanced features. The company’s Scoreboard tool helps entrepreneurs identify unrealistic forecasts and compares projected budgets to actual results. Meanwhile, business partners can rely on the application’s collaboration tools to work together effectively on business plans and privately collect advice from trusted advisors.

Practical Uses:

• Create a business plan for your new company
• Automatically generate visual infographics using your financial data
• Ask advisors for insight on the business plan you’ve developed
• Compare how actual sales results compare to your projected budgets

Insider Tips:

• Issue guest passes to advisors when soliciting feedback
• Multiple business partners can work on a single plan at the same time
• LivePlan works on most tablets and mobile devices
• Export your plan as a PDF file or download it as a Word document

What we liked:

• LivePlan guides novice users through the process of creating business plans
• Financial calculations are made automatically, reducing chances for human error
• LivePlan automatically generates sales forecasts based on a user’s financial data
• Users can import financial information directly from QuickBooks

What we didn’t like:

• LivePlan doesn’t support offline access

Alternatives:

• Business Model Fiddle – http://bmfiddle.com
• Enloop – http://www.enloop.com

Company Info:

• Launched: January 2012
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Eugene, Oregon
• Founded by: Palo Alto Software
• Web site: http://www.liveplan.com

Costs:

• Annual subscriptions cost $11.66 per month, paid annually
• Pay-as-you-go pricing costs $19.95 per month