From building a simple, bare bones startup-style business plan on up to creating something deeper and interactive for a larger, more complex company, Palo Alto Software LivePlan can help you do it all. This cloud-based application begins at $19.95 for a monthly subscription, and has a nice step-by-step process that confidently leads you from creating the initial pitch and number-gathering all the way through document design and even long-term tracking how well you keep to your plan. With all that going for it, I had an easy time awarding it our Editors' Choice award in this category along with Tarkenton GoSmallBiz). To build a business plan with Palo Alto Software LivePlan, as with the other solutions I tested in this roundup including Enloop and The Business Plan Shop, you respond to the software's prompts to enter financial data and compelling text. You describe the business, your goals, and how the business aims to get there, backed up with the money-talk that (presumably) shows how you intend to make a tidy profit. Step-by-Step Data Collection Palo Alto Software LivePlan collects this data in sections and you can watch it come together in your "pitch," which is the summary page describing the opportunity and the funding needed. You fill in a lot of forms describing your company, its products and services, the target market, your strategy and implementation, personnel plan, financial plan, and standard accounting statements. While the base service can applied to any business model, you'll also find four optimized solutions (read: versions) targeting specific customers, including one for entrepreneurs and small businesses, one for accountants, one for consultants, and the last aimed at educators and incubator operations. The basic feature set in each of these is the same as the overall tool, but Palo Alto has tweaked the step-by-step process to more closely adhere to the specific needs of each scenario. You can evaluate LivePlan for free once you fill out an online questionnaire and wait for the company to process your request. Otherwise, the price is $19.95 if paid monthly and $11.66 if paid annually. You can even get a full refund if you're unhappy with it as long as you request the refund within the first 60 days. I like the annual option quite a bit because it makes it easy to use LivePlan not just as a one-time document creator, but as a constant planning tool that earns its place in your day-to-day software business toolkit. With its integrations into your accounting apps and its ability to play what-if games (see below), LivePlan is certainly capable of being much more than simply a tool you use to create a business plan document. However, if we have a ding here, it's that the company could do more in the integration department. While it integrates with two of the most popular small business accounting apps, there are certainly many others in that space who could be useful as well as any number of small business-oriented business intelligence (BI) tools. Hopefully, we'll see more integrations come from Palo Alto as the product matures. Fun With Forms Each form in Palo Alto Software LivePlan goes into quite a bit of detail, which might terrify non-writers—except that Palo Alto Software LivePlan's prompts are encouraging. For example, one prompt says, "Use this space to introduce yourself and your company. This should be a summary of what you talked about in detail in the Company chapter of your plan. Recap the main points from that chapter. Think about who is going to read this. Tell your story and make them want to read more." On a separate tab, it shows five separate examples, which might give you wording inspiration (from which you are apt to copy and paste, of course). The financial forms collect the predictable data about products and services as well as their direct and indirect costs. But it does so with more options than do the other business planning software solutions tested. The personnel section permits you to itemize by individual (e.g., the CEO or simply "Chris") or by job category (e.g., four programmers, paid an average of $100,000 per year, with an annual raise of four percent). You can say whether or not an expense is an overall cost (e.g., the phone bill) or tied to a specific revenue stream (e.g., vendor booths) as well as in what manner (e.g., a percentage of revenue, a constant unit cost, percentage of revenue, or varying cost over time). This lets you be as granular as you need. Palo Alto Software LivePlan also allows you to customize the fiscal year, which is something that EquityNet also lets you do. The step-by-step plan building process can be a real boon in many instances, For example, for those at the very start of their business journey, LivePlan's Pitch feature lets them not only organize their enthusiasm into a coherent mission statement and value proposition, it also lets them create a one-page business plan summary that's immediately ready to present to potential lenders and investors. If you like, you can add more text sections to each chapter or change the order in which they're presented. In fact, Palo Alto Software LivePlan impresses me over and over again with its range of options in every area—from configurable-just-about-everything to its depth of features. For instance, it provides the most revenue types (e.g., unit sales, billable hours, recurring charges, and revenue only) while its competition rarely offers more than two types. Optionally, you can include milestones to highlight important steps and track how well the company stays on-plan—just as you can do with StratPad. Palo Alto Software LivePlan also lets you add contributors (e.g., so both "Chris" and "Esther" can simultaneously work on a plan) and also give advisors "guest passes" to snoop on progress (but without the ability to edit). For an additional fee, you can manage more than one plan at a time. While you can do "what-if'ing" on a separate spreadsheet, one benefit of using a business planning application is that it does the calculations. This makes it easier to experiment so you see the impact of changing cash flow assumptions or the percentage of sales made with a credit card. To match progress against the real world, over time, Palo Alto Software LivePlan connects with Intuit QuickBooks for Windows, QuickBooks Online , and Xero Standard—or you can manually update your actual business data. Impressive Library of Sample Plans As you work with your own data, sometimes you want the broad overview (e.g., "I'm trying to get the 'ask' under this number, have I made it?") while at other times you want every detail. Palo Alto Software LivePlan's user interface (UI) gives you a simplified view but also lets you drill into the numbers. Palo Alto Software LivePlan's library of sample plans is impressive as well. Its competitors might offer one or two business plans to demonstrate where you might talk about one topic or another. In contrast, Palo Alto Software LivePlan provides dozens of in-depth samples with which to inspire you—from real estate agencies to golf courses; there are 44 examples in the restaurant, café, and bakery category alone. While every business planning software solution generates an attractive, downloadable report (it's the reason you're using the software, after all), Palo Alto Software LivePlan lets you indulge in presentation beautification, with a choice of visual themes, control over line spacing, and a toggle for whether or not to mark a document as confidential. Anytime I have to struggle to find something to put into the "Cons" section of a "Pros and Cons" product review, I know I've got a winner. That's certainly the case for Palo Alto Software LivePlan, which made it the easy pick for Editors' Choice (along with Tarkenton GoSmallBiz) in this business plan software review roundup. Palo Alto Software LivePlan Bottom Line: Delivered in slick, cloud service packaging, Palo Alto Software's LivePlan is a very nice business planning tool that comes complete with loads of customizable features and solid online help and learning resources. Even so, the products sheer depth means you're still facing a bit of a learning curve.

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