Читать книгу Business Plans For Dummies - Paul Tiffany - Страница 16

Business-planning software allows you to automatically assemble all the components of a business plan, turning them into a printer-ready, spiffy-looking document. The best programs also make easy work of the financial parts of business planning — creating income statements and cash-flow statements, for example, or making financial projections. Some software programs add graphics, such as tables and charts, which provide an easy way for your audience to see what you describe in the written document.

Business-planning software programs can sometimes make the job of business planning too easy. With all their bells and whistles, they may trick you into skipping the serious (that is, difficult) work of creating and writing an effective plan. Keep in mind that the best software-planning tools guide you through the important aspects of business planning and then keep track of your words, sentences, and paragraphs. But they don’t think for you. You still need to do the serious mental work yourself.

Investors, and bankers who make a living reviewing and funding business plans, are all too familiar with the look and feel of the most popular software-generated business-planning documents. If you use one of these programs, make sure you customize your plan to make it unique. The last thing you want is for your business plan to look exactly like a hundred others that cross a VC’s (venture capitalist) desk every month.