Customer Rating: 
Summary: Roadmap to Success
Comment: Our company lacked focus and had failed to produce any financial projections during the first 18 months of operations. We were making money but our growth was stagnant. A business coach recommended Business Plan Pro and said our first priority was to write a business plan and project revenues for 5 years out. Business Plan Pro simplified the process and helped us determine the overall direction of the company. In the last 12 months we have acquired several new clients and our sales are up 28% from the prior-year-to-date. Thanks for the great program!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disservice to Anyone Who Wants a Fundable Business Plan
Comment: This software is a joke for anyone who would want to use it to get a bank loan or venture capital. For example, you can set a 3-year or 5-year forecast. Then it asks you to apply a growth rate to your year 1 sales, and it applies that growth rate over the entire forecast. Anyone knows that growth rates vary year-to-year based on the stage of your business. I won't even get into how bad the expense forecasting section is.
Anyone trying to raise money will be told their plan is worthless when they present it to investors. Whether the funding source comes from a bank or VC, they will want to see a monthly (12 months) build to a quarterly (12 quarters) to an annual (5 years). In other words, they (and you should) want to see if the cash you're asking for will cover the needs within the financing period. This software won't support such a basic, critical requirement.
Don't waste your money. This software is amateur.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Too Rigid
Comment: I find the ideas solid and the package layout is good . It is just too rigid. You have to stay between their lines and if you deviate it becomes an "export, cut and paste thing". You cannot modify within their software. So if you have any customized charts or such like, these need to be store in a seperate file while the text etc. of the business plans is kept in the dedicate Business Plan Pro software.Overall it is not a "bad " product just not as flexible as you would want it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Business Plan Pro-Better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Comment: Business Plan Pro is better than a sharp stick in the eye, but not much better. That 5 star review sounds like it was written by a corporate shill. Let me tell you about BP ProBusiness Plan Pro is a half-fast program. It has some of the functionality of Excel but doesn't allow linking between worksheets. It has some of the functionality of Word, but you can't remove a row once you have inserted a heading. For example, if you decide that you don't need a "Personal Assistant" you still have a row in the personel spreadsheet that has to be edited later. The formula backtracker is cumbersome, it takes you back to the precedents, but doesn't have a return feature. These are only but a few of the many built-in aggrievations. Everytime you try and get some detail, it refers you to the Premier edition which costs $250. That's insulting.
If you are starting a business for the first time, my advice is to sign up for a night course on business plans and use the software they give you.
Customer Rating:
Summary: an MBA in a box
Comment: Like most people starting a business, I don't have much of a finance background and have not had to write a business plan before. Based on a recommendation from a friend, I checked out Business Plan Pro.The software helped me the whole way through and the sample plans were a huge help. Each plan that I looked at was over 35 pages and included all the financials for the business. I was very impressed by the level of writing in the samples and used some of the examples to help with my own writing.
The financial help was enormous. I could not have done it without the software. It helped me build my sales forecast and cash flow, something I could not have done on my own.
I highly recommend this software to anyone starting a business.
![Business Plan Pro 2004 [Old Version]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MNW4RATZL._SL160_.jpg)
