To see an example for the current topic, click the Examples tab in the Instructions and Examples window:

Click Next Example to see more.

Click Paste Into Topic to paste the current example into your topic as a starting point for your own text.

Meet Alex and Evan, two of the dedicated ECP programmers who used to get woken up at 2:00 in the morning with alerts that the servers were struggling to handle all of your mail. These days, they’re a lot more rested.

The most recent improvements to Email Center Pro are largely behind-the-scenes upgrades that help you serve your customers faster and more reliably.

More helpful Search results

One change you can actually see is in the Search function. We noticed that a lot of our users were using search for “names@domain”, rather than opening the Contacts tab to look specifically for people.

You’ll see that the Search box on the top right of your Email Center Pro screen now contains an arrow. Click the arrow next time you’re using the search, and use the drop-down menu to focus your search results on emails, contacts, templates, or tagged conversations.

Then you might want to consider forecasting your sales (or part of your sales) with a subscription, or churn-rate, model. This kind of sales forecast allows you to make projections that take into account ongoing revenue, new customers, and cancellations.

Both Business Plan Pro and Marketing Plan Pro have a special add-in sales forecast for handling subscription sales. To access this feature:

First, download it from our website

1. Make sure you have a working Internet connection open
2. Open your business or marketing plan in your Palo Alto software program
3. On the Tools menu, click Add-ins
4. (Note: your serial number should automatically load in the web page. If it doesn’t, you can find it by clicking About in the Help menu)
5. Scroll down the list until you find Sales Forecast-Subscription (Churn Rate) Model
6. Click Download Component
7. If prompted to Find a program or Save the file, click Save. Then browse to a location where you want to save it, such as your Desktop.

Then, import it into your plan

1. Return to your plan software
2. On the File menu, click Import
3. Choose Import an Add-In, and click Next
4. Browse to the location where you saved the downloaded file
5. Highlight the downloaded file name and click Open, then click Next
6. Click Finish

The new subscription model sales forecast will open for you to see and work with. Instructions above the spreadsheet get you started. You can also click Search on the Help menu, and search for “subscription” to find more information.

Finally, link it to your tables
The Subscription forecast currently exists in your plan as a stand-alone table. It doesn’t replace your regular Sales Forecast table, and doesn’t feed into your plan’s financial data. To make your subscription forecast part of your financial plan, you can build a link in the main Sales Forecast table to the “Total Sales” row of the Subscription Model sales forecast.

Click here for detailed instructions on linking your Subscription Model to your main Sales Forecast.

While the wizards are designed for users who aren’t used to doing their own financial projections, the spreadsheets still offer a great deal of help in understanding what kind of data belongs where.

Row Help
In addition to the general Instructions above each table, spreadsheets contain definitions for every row, which depend on your Table Settings. To see Row-by-row help in your Spreadsheet, simply click on a cell in the row you wish to learn more about, and read the definition which displays along the bottom of your program window.

Can’t See Row-by-Row Help?
If you do not see the Row definition window below your spreadsheet, make sure there is a checkmark next to Row by Row Help on the View menu.

Example
The top line of your Row-by Row help lists the row number and label, to make sure you are reading the right definition. In the example below, all three row names have been filled in; note how the new row labels appear as part of the row definitions (”University Students“).

How could this be? I WRITE help files for a living!

Well, first, they often have so much information it takes forever to wade through it to find what I want, and I’m terribly impatient. Secondly, help authors seem to phrase everything in unexpected ways – if I want to know about ADDING, they talk about SUMS. Harrumph. I’d much rather turn around and ask the expert user sitting next to me a question, in plain English, that cuts right to what I want to do.

Did you know that we’ve tried to give you that quick, expert user answer on every screen of Business Plan Pro?

At the top right of every screen, just below the buttons to close and minimize the program, is a little “How Do I?” button, offering shortcuts to the most common questions our users have. Go ahead and click it; I bet your question is in there.

And since planning involves different tasks, like writing text, projecting financials, printing your plan, etc., the How Do I? button will give you additional task-specific tips when you click it from within a topic, table, or chart.

So there you go. A little digital expert to consult for your quick questions, with quick, easy to follow, simple answers.

Of course, when you’re ready for more complex questions, like the difference between expenses and assets, or whether labor costs for production belong in your Sales Forecast or your Profit and Loss tables, we’ve got that covered in the full Help file.

With features like full-text searching, an Index, and lots of ‘Related Topics’ links, we hope using the Help is easier in our programs than in some software we’ve had to use. But, if you end up using only the built-in Instructions, Wizards, and the occasional How Do I? tip, we won’t blame you.

In fact, we designed it that way.

1. On the View menu, point to Tables, Topics, or Charts (depending on what you’re looking for)
2. An alphabetical list of all the tables, topics, or charts in your plan will display
3. Click on the name of the item you wish to open

It’s that simple!

And you can see the same list by clicking the All Items area below the Outline, then using the drop-down box to filter the list by Tables, Topics, or Charts.

To change the colors in all your charts:

• On the Tools menu, point to Options and click Charts.
• Click on the Colors tab.
• Click the pull-down arrow and scroll through the list to see different palette options.
• Highlight the new color palette name and click OK.

To change the colors in a single chart:

• On the Chart formatting toolbar, click Custom Format.
  • Use the Palette button to change the entire chart.
  • OR, right-click on the data series (line, bar, or area) you would like to change and select one of the options that appears.
• For more detailed changes to background, gridline, or chart box colors, click the custom format Properties button, and change the settings on the General and Y Axis tabs.

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.

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.

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.