The surest sign that the entrepreneurial markets have been forever altered by the crash of 2001 can be seen in the changes to business planning software.

On the eve of 2005, it is clear that IPOs are still hard to come by, venture capital has all but disappeared, and funding of any kind is hard to find. This is reflected in software for business plan development in five ways:

1. Planning now requires a stronger emphasis on marketing and profitability. Long the weakest part of business plans, the marketing section now commands the attention of investors who want to know when they will get their money back.

2. Cash flow analyses are more extensive and more important. In the free-wheeling days of the late 1990s, it was not uncommon for a start-up to burn through millions of dollars in cash with no end-and no profits-in sight. Those days are long gone.

3. It's all in the presentation. For decades, the presentation of the plan has been a secondary consideration. Investors, it was believed, did not care about the presentation but instead focused only on the facts and figures. But in today's environment, the ability to sell the plan is almost as important as the plan itself.

4. The text is getting simpler. The flourishes and impressive tone of the templates is slowly yielding to more concise language and better organization. In addition, there is more recognition of the differences between plans in different industries, leading to more specialization in the templates.

5. The packages are increasingly book plus disk. Initially, some software was created to implement concepts from a single author's planning guide. Then established software products began to offer books as a means to better explain the planning process. Today, few packages can succeed if they do not offer both the software and the book, even if it is published in electronic form.

This review covers the top six business planning software packages, each of which takes a unique approach or conceptual direction. Some are template-based products, while others rely on interactive interviews and wizards. Some are a combination of the two. All have significant strengths, have built a successful following in the accounting industry, and are worthy of consideration, depending on the needs of the client and the type of practice the accountant is seeking to build.

Automate Your Business Plan 11.0

Automate Your Business Plan is a combination book and software program from Linda Pinson, the publisher who literally "wrote the book" on business planning-the U.S. Small Business Administration publication, "How To Write a Business Plan."

The package comes with both the software on CD and the fifth edition of "Anatomy of a Business Plan," a step-by-step guide to building the business plan.

Aimed at the entrepreneur or small business owner, the software combines text documents with spreadsheet financial statements. The Version 11.0 upgrade is a substantial revision of capabilities from previous versions, and new features of note in the version include an integrated financial workbook that saves time and effort in updating financial statements. The linked statements replace a set of individual financial pages that needed to be customized and managed individually, and now also include a wizard for rapid development of the chart of accounts.

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