Sage Planning for Business

Is Planning for Business right for me?

Developed in collaboration with a major high street bank, Sage Planning for Business takes you through four simple steps to give your business the best possible start. You’ll be able to fully understand the potential of your idea, create a robust business plan to present to potential investors or lenders, manage your setup costs and plan for the future with confidence.

It takes the pain out of the complexities of starting and running a business, and you don’t need any prior experience to use it. Video demos will help get you up and running and you can access help articles and useful guides online.

Sage Planning for Business also integrates with Sage Start-up and Sage Instant Accounts, so you can review your trading cash flow against your forecast, helping you to understand your financial position.

Sage Planning for Business walks you through everything you need to turn your idea into a profitable business. The quick start questionnaire will help you develop an easy-to-follow ‘to do’ list, walking you through all the essentials of pulling your business plan together.

It automatically populates your business plan as you complete your tasks, providing professional templates to help you impress your bank manager or potential investors.

You can also plan for the future with confidence, forecast your cash flow and VAT, and set up Profit & Loss and Balance sheets whilst keeping a close eye on your costs.

However, Sage Planning for Business doesn’t just help you start a business - it also helps you run your business. When you’re up & running you can measure your progress against forecast, prioritise your workload with the built-in diary, and view your performance at a glance through the management dashboards.

All this for only £25+VAT - complete with free access to our online library of support articles.

Is Planning for Business right for me?

Easy to set up and use:

• Business Area containing a Welcome Page, Diary and Business Settings
• Novice or expert modes depending on your experience in preparing business plans
• View video demonstrations to help you along the way
• Four simple steps to help you start your business
• Access to free online support articles
• View sample business plans as a guide
• Manage your time with integrated diary
  

Plan your business:

• Business Plan Quick Start questionnaire creates a list of tasks you will need to complete
• Walk through the business planning process step-by-step
• Check off your tasks as you complete them & set planning goals
• Add additional tasks to suit your business
• Guidance, links to resources and worked examples to help you work through planning tasks
• Research your market and competitors
• Store all your research & information in one place
• Online access to information, points to consider and links to useful articles

Create & present your business plan:

• Automatically generate your business plan as you complete tasks
• Presentation area where the plan is stored viewed and amended.
• Option to go straight to the plan section and tailor your business plan
• Format your business plan using a professional template
• Present to your Bank Manager or potential investors to secure financial support
• Tailor your plan to suit different audiences
• Develop a Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet for your business
• Synchronise with Sage Start-up or Instant Accounts to complete a business health check
• Export in Microsoft Word, Excel or PDF format

Plan for the future with confidence:

• Understand and project your cash flow and VAT forecasts
• Accurately predict setup and running costs for your business
• Use scenarios to plot sales & revenue against expenses
• Develop your business strategy & marketing plan
  

Monitor your progress:

• Easily check how your business is doing compared to your plan
• Measure forecasted sales against your actual income
• See your forecasted Profit & Loss against actuals
• View your performance in a flash through Management Dashboards
• Trade and Review area where you can link your plan to Sage Start-up or Instant Accounts and review your performance against your plan

Online advice & support included:

• Browse frequently asked questions online
• Step-by-step guides and business advice articles available to download.
• Online and technical help and trouble-shooting guides to get you up and running.

 

Recommended hardware

• An IBM compatible computer with a 2 GHz (or equivalent) processor
• 1GB RAM
• 1GB of free disk space after Windows has been installed.

Supported operating systems

• Windows 2000
• Windows 2008
• Windows XP SP3 (recommended)
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
  

Technical notes:

• Performance will be improved with higher specification computers and networks, and it only possible to install one copy on a single computer.
• Works with Microsoft Office 2003 and all later editions, and please ensure you have the latest Microsoft updates installed.
• This product will not install or run on the Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows NT4 operating systems.
• The latest service packs should be installed for your operating system before installing or upgrading Sage products. 32-bit Operating Systems recommended.
• Whilst there are no browser requirements for Sage Planning for Business, we recommend Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or above for internet access to Sage Support and important Sage updates for your products.
• A Sage Planning for Business licence allows you to install the software on a single workstation.

Apple Mac compatibility

Sage software is not compatible with Apple Macs, unless you are running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 via Apple’s Boot Camp utility.

Sage Planning for Business Tour