Financial business plans are most valuable when they allow you an opportunity to learn the needs of your business. The analytical tools built into Business Financial Planner provide deep insight into every aspect of your plan and what it means for your business needs. What’s more, with the analytics directly built into the planning tool, each change to the plan is immediately reflected in the analytics. Beyond the basic financial highlights such as gross and net profit margins, breakouts of operating costs etc, here are some of the more advanced analytical tools offered in all versions of Business Financial Planner:

Cash Flow / Break Even Analysis:

One of the most common challenges for existing and new businesses is being able to plan their cash needs correctly. When will be break even? How much do we need to adjust our income or expenses to reach break even earlier? How much capital do we need to borrow or raise and when? How do the credit terms we give to our customers and we request from our suppliers impact the cash flow? All of these are questions that can easily be answered with Business Financial Planners cash flow and break even analysis tools.

What If / Scenarios:

Both these analytical tools provide valuable insight into the elasticity and veracity of your plan.

“What If” analysis allows you a quick and high level view into the impact of changes to the key parameters of your plan on Sales and Operating Profit. For example: what if costs increase or decrease by 10%, or what if your projected sales quantities fluctuate by 25% in either direction. The tools even allow you to assess the impact of two parameters at once – for example: what if both operating expense and sales fluctuate by 15% either up or down in the first year of the plan?

“Scenario” analysis provides a deeper look at the impact different potential scenarios on the main financial reports (P&L, Operating Cash Flow, Balance Sheet and Financial Ratios). For example: What will my P&L and Cash Flow look like if in the worst case prices go down by 5% and sales quantities decrease by 7% while operating expenses increase by 10% what will my major reports look like. Conversely, how much better will the business be doing if the sales and prices go up by 5% while operating expenses decrease by 3%.

Goal Seek:

With this analytical tool Business Financial Planner shifts the direction of the analysis from making changes to the plan and assessing the impact, to setting a goal and seeing how to get there. Set your target operating profit at 30% and quickly see how your operating expenses, direct costs or revenues need to change relative to your plan.

Company Valuation:

An entirely other set of analytical tools offered by Business Financial Planner, relate to calculating the value of your business. With three models to choose from Free Cash Flow, Price/Earning and Economic Value Added, you are fully covered in terms of putting together a complete and accurate valuation.