Plana comprises 8 Sections, you can look at them in whichever order you prefer, however, we suggest you start with Section 1 and work your way through to 8.

Your work will automatically save and Plana has been designed to encourage and enable you to return to your plan regularly – just 10 minutes during a coffee break will be 10 minutes well spent!

Start your 7 day free trial now to explore Plana and see how easy it is to write your own business plan!

When you log in you will see your Dashboard – this is where you can see all your plans. To start just click on ‘Create New Plan’, give the plan a name and click save!

From the Dashboard you can also invite and manage collaborators.

At the top of each Section you can access the self help text by clicking on the ‘?’ symbol. Here you can learn more about how to complete the section and useful background information about the area of business planning you currently working on.

Need some practical, hands on support? See below for details of how to access bespoke remote guidance and support from one of our experienced advisers.

The 8 Sections cover the following key areas:

Section 1: Mission Statement and Values

Here you will consider the overall purpose of your business and the way you intend to do business and interact with your customers, colleagues and suppliers.

As you work through Plana you should regularly revisit this section and ask yourself whether these aims are achievable and realistic and consistent with the other sections of your plan.

Section 2: People

Use our tool to quickly and easily prepare an Organisational Chart to show the current structure of your business. This will help you to consider the effectiveness of the current structure – are any key functions under resourced? Are there any obvious bottlenecks?

Then complete another chart based on where you want the business to be at a certain time in the future, say, in one year. Compare the charts and consider the additional people and resources you will need in order to achieve the proposed structure. Is that achievable? What are your priorities now?

In this section you can also include brief overviews of your key people.

Section 3: Vision, Goals & Strategies

In this section you start forming your short and long term Vision for the business and your personal life too. Your Vision is your desired aims – the future situation you are ideally looking to achieve.

Use the platform to list as many different elements of your Vision as you can – start with the key ones and then regularly re-visit this Section and add further elements. For instance, begin with stating your Vision regarding levels of sales and profitability and future employee numbers. Include other elements such as your exit strategy, your future working role, working hours and any aims in terms of launching new products or entering new markets.

It is important to consider your personal life too so you can add elements relating to specific activities you would like to undertake in your spare time, such as sport and fitness.

You will then consider each of the elements making up your Vision and set the specific Goals you will need to achieve in order to successfully realise that element of your Vision.

Each Goal will then need a Strategy, that is your intended approach to achieving that Goal, along with the specific Actions you need to take now in order to move forward.

Having considered this Section perhaps you may need to review your original Mission Statement and proposed Organisational structure?

Section 4: Offer

This is where you look at your Offer and detail your Products / Services.

You can also practice stating your Pitch – a really useful sales tool – and consider the Benefits of your offer and not just the Features.

Other content such as Markets and Pricing can be considered in this Section.

Section 5: PEST & SWOT

A vital and extremely useful part of your plan as it really helps to focus the mind on the most important factors affecting your business. These analyses should support and justify your overall business proposition and the strategies and actions you have detailed.

The PEST looks at the impact of external factors – (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) – on your business / team and aims to measure a market.

The SWOT considers the Strengths and Weaknesses of your business / team and the Opportunities and Threats it faces. You can also use a SWOT to help assess a business proposition.

Section 6: Company Finances

Input figures from your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet and Plana will automatically calculate a range of key ratios and measures. You can also consider and set your own targets.

You can show 3 different periods to best suit your circumstances, e.g. 2 years of actuals plus a 1 year forecast or 1 years actual and 2 years of forecasts.

The section contains detailed self help text explaining how to calculate the ratios and measures and their purpose.

Section 7: Forecasts & Projections

‘Cash is King’ – always have a Cashflow and keep it up to date. The template provided in Plana is a guide – add / amend or delete rows to suit your business.

Overwrite your forecasts with the actual figures as they become known to keep your cashflow up to date. How accurate were your forecasts? Do you need to adjust your future forecasts based on the actuals?

Section 8: Systems & Processes

Here we consider the key Systems and Processes that apply to your business by using Flow Charts to identify the individual steps in each process. Also consider any new systems that you may need to introduce in order to achieve your previously stated Strategies and Actions.

When you have completed your Flow Charts review each of the separate steps in the process and consider how well your processes work in practice. Could there be a more effective and efficient way? Is the process logical? Is it unnecessarily complicated? Look particularly closely at any steps in your Flow Charts that seem unnecessary and can only really be ‘justified’ because they have always been done that way.

Download your Plan

Complete some final prompts to provide readers with a brief introduction to your plan and then Print or Save your plan in .pdf format.

Still need help with your plan?

Arrange bespoke, remote guidance and support from one of our Consultants. Please note an active Subscription is required.