iPlanner Review

Writing a solid business plan is a skill, it needs detail and accuracy. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs have the skill but don’t have the patience to see it though.

If you have no idea how to create a business plan, it would be best to use a tool that can walk you through the process. It’s very important that your business plan is done right because it will dictate your company goals and direction. So if you want to focus your attention more on building rather than planning, you can use a business plan software like iPlanner.

iPlanner is a business planning tool that was founded in 2007 and has since assisted small startups, business professionals and even multinational companies.

iPlanner Pros:

• Has easy-to-use plan templates that will help you organize your thoughts in a structured manner. • Provides users with an extensive online library that stores hundreds of useful resources such as “how-to” articles. • Let business experts, mentors and co-entrepreneurs assist you by sharing your business plan online. • You can open iPlanner in any device and web browser, it’s compatible with Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Open Source programs. • Has financial engines that will automatically calculate your business’ numbers and will provide you with accurate financial statements. • Assures you that your business plan is secure by providing you with unique network address. • Has industry specific plan templates that will allow you to create a business model according to your field/industry. • Allows you to import financial data from other accounting tools.

For a freelance Business Consultant like me, the Iplanner.NET Strategy Designer is an ideal template to build and draw Strategic Business Plans. It’s quite useful as there is a template ready to just gather the information you need and fill in the details. Corporate chiefs need not sit over many meetings with functional heads to get their annual strategic plan into shape. With this interactive app all stakeholders can access the template from any online device and contribute their inputs sitting at their desks, while also check easily what their peers contribute to the business. Quick editing of information, transparency, acceptance of all formats (Word/Excel/PDF etc.) of data input, easy texting and uploading features enhance the utility of this Strategy Designer. With the back-up storage and processing needs taken care of by the provider, we save on additional hardware cost and space. A basic requirement is to be online to use this as it is an interactive guide and only English language is used during the interaction. Few small business clients of mine may find even the basic version costly but my recommendations are generally respected. Building a good Strategic Business Plan is now faster and easier!

The iPlanner.NET Strategy designer provides a rather exhaustive setup for interactive planning among many different team members in a company. Web based collaboration such as this is particularly useful in that it eliminates the necessity for additional servers. Being able to access it from multiple types of devices is particularly useful when different team members are using different hardware. It simply makes it more accessible.

Price wise a good value for both larger corporations and small businesses alike.

I do wish there was an offline version though. If I wanted to work on a particular plan while I’m on a bus or on a plane, well I’ll simply have to wait. The ability to work in an offline mode and then switch back into an online mode would be very useful.

I do wish there was a full, documented or wiki version of the manual. I’m the type that likes to know the ins and outs of every piece of software at my disposal. Having a manual would definitely be a plus

One definite upside is the multiple output tools, where the final document can be exported to Microsoft Word, HTML, or as a PDF file. This ensures that the final document can be viewed by as many people as possible.

In all, I would definitely recommend this product.