Dead-Simple Software for Small Business

Business Plan Pro has an Import function that lets you pull major categories and useful information from your QuickBooks or Peachtree accounting files into your plan file. (Note: Business Plan Pro UK Edition imports from Sage Line 50, rather than Peachtree.)

Bringing Planning and Accounting together
Accounting software and Business Plan Pro have different, but related, purposes. Accounting must necessarily go very deep into detail. Planning requires a balance between detail and concept, because there are times when too much detail is not productive. The key to bringing them together is being able to show the same summary categories in your plan projections as you have in your bookkeeping. This gives you a powerful tool for planning and management.

The Import function:

• Imports accounting categories for sales, cost of sales, and/or expenses.
• Matches major categories only, to turn accounting data into future planning. Accounting information for subcategories is summarized in the major categories.
• Can optionally apply growth rates to past amounts to provide estimations of future amounts for planning purposes. The approximate amounts are only slightly different from accounting totals.

(Premier Edition) Additionally, users with the Premier Edition can import data as you begin to plan, so your business plan row labels match your accounting categories. Then import actual accounting data again in a few months or a year to start using the built-in Plan vs. Actual analysis tools.

To get started, click Import on the File menu, and choose your accounting software.

Tags: Business Plan Pro tips, Tips and Tricks
Posted under Business Plan Pro on June 16th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Feeling chatty? Or maybe you’re ready to set out on a full email marketing campaign? Email Center Pro can keep you in the loop every step of the way, with integration of enterprise-level software right from within your Email Center Pro Dashboard.

Email Marketing Campaigns
Our partners at VerticalResponse help you grow your business with targeted email marketing campaigns. With a single click, you can now automatically create lists for your email marketing campaigns from any group of Email Center Pro Contacts. Then, track your lists and campaigns in a dedicated VerticalResponse Dashboard widget.

Live Chatting
With the growth of online interaction, more and more customers expect live online chat capabilities as part of the customer experience. In addition to real-time tracking of email conversations, users with a Velaro chat account can now see live online chat details in the new Velaro Dashboard widget. Log in and view chat transcripts, send customers a record of the chat from your Email Center Pro address for future reference, or even look up other email conversations with that customer, all with a single click!

Dazzle them with your speed!
Paid accounts can now add a Response Time Badge to their websites, announcing to the world how fast your customer response time is for any mailbox in your account. Whether you want to intimidate the competition or just applaud your customer service team, the Response Time Badge shows that you understand the value of your customers’ time.

Tags: ecp update
Posted under Email Center Pro on June 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

When a company purchases another company for more than the value of its assets – which is quite common – the difference is recorded as an asset named “Goodwill.”  This is not a general term for the value of a brand, for example, but a very specific accounting term.

For example, if one business buys another business for $1 million, then it needs to show the $1 million spent as an asset. If there are only $500 thousand in real assets, the accounting result should be $500,000 in real assets purchased and another $500,000 in “Goodwill.”

Goodwill is normally amortised over 5 to 40 years, depending on variables determined by the accountants.

In Business Plan Pro, you would include this goodwill value as part of your Long-term Assets. You can then record the amortization of goodwill as Depreciation. Remember to explain this asset in the Balance Sheet topic.

Tags: Business Plan Pro tips, Tips and Tricks
Posted under Business Plan Pro on May 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

In addition to the standard Duct Tape Marketing System Tasks, Marketing Plan Pro contains additional planning tools for specific situations. To see these tools:

1. Click the Plan Setup button on the toolbar
2. Click Next
3. In Step 2: Customize your document, select Standard plan
4. Click Next
5. Close the Plan Setup
6. On the View menu, click Tables

The table list now includes a number of additional marketing planning tables, including Channel Analysis, Customer Lifetime Value, Market Demographics, ROI Calculator, and more. Click the name of any table to open and use it.

Example: Customer Lifetime Value

This table allows you to compare the costs of acquiring a new customer to the overall Customer Lifetime Value (revenue from that customer).

In most businesses, you hope to sell your products or services to a customer not just once, but several times over the course of several years. Adding up these sales over the entire customer lifetime and then subtracting what it costs to acquire the customer gives you the total customer lifetime value. The final rows calculate an adjusted value to take into account the present-day value of future income. 

The example below shows a plan for selling high-end services to other businesses.

Your row definitions will walk you through the specifics of this table, but here are a few notes:

Customer Lifetime refers to the number of years from initial purchase to final purchase. While some major brands or stores are lucky enough to have a customer lifetime of over 30 years, most of us are looking at significantly less, from 1/2 to 5 years.

Costs of Marketing to a Potential Customer means just that – potential customers, not actual customers. If you spend $5,000 on marketing aimed at 1,000 potential customers, this figure would be $5, even if only 1 person out of 1,000 responded.

This table is not part of the standard Marketing Plan Pro Outline. You can use it behind the scenes, or insert it into your Outline to include it in printed output.

Tags: Marketing Plan Pro, Tips and Tricks
Posted under Marketing Plan Pro on April 30th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

If your business plan includes receiving loans, you will need to enter the loan amounts in the Start-up Funding or Past Performance table (for loans received before the plan’s starting date), or in the Cash Flow table (for loans received after the plan’s starting date).

You will also need to enter the planned repayment amounts in the Cash Flow table, and projected Current and Long-term interest rates in the General Assumptions table. The Profit and Loss table will automatically calculate the tax-deductible interest on the loans from these numbers.

About current vs. long-term loans

While the distinction between current and long-term assets has to do with depreciation, standard accounting makes an arbitrary division between current and long-term liabilities. The idea behind this division is about establishing a difference on how long such liabilities last. The division between long-term and current liabilities might be three, five, or ten years.

Each company makes its own decision, usually in agreement with financial management and accountants. You can make that decision yourself or ask an accountant. If you are just starting a new business, and have no idea, then make the division five years: liabilities that last longer than five years are long term.

About interest rates

The General Assumptions table contains default interest rates for your loans – simply type over the existing number for Current or Long-term Interest rate to change this to your projected interest rate.

You do not have to include the General Assumptions table in the printed document. The financials need these numbers, but your readers might not. Although interest rate and tax rate assumptions are standard, not every reader relates to them in detail. If you want to include this table in your printed plan: 

1. Open your plan Outline
2. Click on the Important Assumptions topic (in the Financials section)
3. Click Table on the Insert menu
4. Choose the General Assumptions table from the existing tables list
5. Click OK

You can search your Business Plan Pro Help on “loans” or any other term related to this kind of funding to find much more information.

Tags: Business Plan Pro tips
Posted under Business Plan Pro on April 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

Here at Palo Alto Software, we were frustrated with customer emails that didn’t contain all the information we needed. We’d have to reply back with a request for more information, and wait for a response, all of which delayed our ability to help our customers as quickly and well as we could.

Our solution was an online form which prompts customers for each bit of information we need in order to solve their problem or meet their needs on THEIR timeframe – ASAP. Of course, as a software company, we have a full-time staff of Web-savvy programmers, but now this sort of innovation is available even for very small businesses.

This week, Email Center Pro has released an update which includes a new Dashboard widget for tracking results of your online forms from FormSpring. FormSpring allows businesses and organizations an easy way to build any type of online form, integrate it with their website and begin collecting data in digital format.

To see the new widget:

1. Open your Email Center Pro Dashboard
2. Click Add More Widgets at the top left of the screen
3. Scroll through the list and find the FormSpring widget
4. Click Add This Widget

If you already have a FormSpring account, just enter your API key to log in and see your responses. If you don’t have an account yet, you can sign up right in the widget. Isn’t it nice to get your customer interactions in their best form ever?

Tags: collaborative email, ecp update, Email Center Pro
Posted under Email Center Pro on April 21st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

To give your customers the best experience, you need to manage your email campaigns from building the list, to tracking clicks, to following up with one-on-one interactions with prospects and customers.

Palo Alto Software is pleased to announce that we are now one step closer to closing that email loop, with the integration of a new widget which lets Email Center Pro users access key data from their VerticalResponse email campaigns, right in the Email Center Pro Dashboard.

To see the new widget:

1. Open your Email Center Pro Dashboard
2. Click Add More Widgets at the top left of the screen
3. Scroll through the list and find the VerticalResponse widget
4. Click Add This Widget 

Once added, you will need to log in with your VerticalResponse email address to see summaries of your mailing lists and campaigns.

If you don’t yet have a VerticalResponse account, you can sign up directly from the widget, and get 250 free email credits and 50 free survey credits.

You can learn more about VerticalResponse and how they can help you manage your email campaigns at the VerticalResponse website.

Tags: ecp update
Posted under Email Center Pro on April 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

Whether you’re getting started quickly with a 30-minute plan, or exploring your marketing efforts in-depth with the full Standard outline, Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing lets you easily note your progress. The built-in Tasks bar shows you how far you have come and how many Tasks you have left to complete.

Each task in the Tasks list includes a progress status button, next to the Previous Task and Next Task buttons at the bottom of the screen.

By default, each task is listed as “Not Started.” As you work on each table and topic, the status becomes “In Progress.” You can track your progress through the Tasks list by marking items as “Complete” when you are finished with them. Task icons in the Tasks list will reflect each item’s status – a pencil shows the task is in progress, while a checkmark indicates the task is complete.

Marking tasks as “Complete” will also change the progress report bar at the bottom of the Tasks list:

Posted under Marketing Plan Pro on April 9th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

You can click on the column headers in any message listing to sort conversations by subject or date.

1. Open any mailbox or Saved Search
2. Click the Subject or Date column
3. You can click again to reverse the sort order
4. Scroll through the list to find a specific message
5. Click the message to open that conversation

Tags: ecp update
Posted under Business Plan Pro, Email Center Pro on March 31st, 2009 | No Comments »

If you’re just starting out with the Duct Tape Marketing System, chances are you will focus most closely on the next 12 months, during which you make marketing integral to all your small business activities.

However, if your business is seasonal, and your marketing promotions include seasonal events, you may want to use the option for planning your second year of sales and expenses in monthly detail, as well.

To check or change your settings:

1. Click the Plan Setup button on the toolbar
2. Click Next until you reach the “2nd year of monthly data” question
3. Click the radio button to select “Yes, include a 2nd year of monthly data in my financials“
4. Click Next
5. Close the Plan Setup

Your Sales Forecast and Marketing Expense Budget table spreadsheets will now include a tab to toggle between 1st Year Planned and 2nd Year Planned forecasts. If you are using the table wizards to fill in your numbers, the wizard will automatically prompt you to fill in the second year of monthly data as you go through it.

Posted under Marketing Plan Pro on March 27th, 2009 | 2 Comments »