Exl-Plan
Basic is part of the Exl-Plan range of packages for
preparing comprehensive financial projections for a business plan, budgets
etc. It uses annual assumptions to generate five-year projections whereas
all other commercial versions (Micro, Lite, Pro, Super, Super
Plus, Ultra and Ultra Plus) use monthly
and quarterly assumptions to create three, five or seven years ahead.
Also, Exl-Plan Basic handles both UK/ International
and US/ Canadian accounting formats. All other version handle these formats
in separate editions. On account of all these differences and to avoid
confusion, descriptive material about Exl-Plan Basic is
confined on this page. Here is a description of the complete Exl-Plan
range.
Exl-Plan Basic is ideal for "first-cut" or
"high-level" projections comprising comprehensive 5-year income
statements (P&Ls),
cash flow projections and statements and balance sheets along with numerous
charts and ratios. As such, it can be used for strategic and corporate
planning, raising finance, business restructuring and financial appraisals
within almost any size and type of business where monthly
or quarterly projections are not required.
It could also be used to prepare highly-professional financial projections
for "business plan competitons" or for Business School assignments.
Fast
Facts
Name: Exl-Plan (nine versions and US/Can & UK/International
editions).
Function: Excel template for multi-year
income, cashflow & balance sheet
projections with Word template for business plan.
Uses: Business plans, budgets, raising finance & strategic
planning.
Exl-Plan
requires Microsoft Excel (5, 7, 8, 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007 or 2010) running on Windows (95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7).
Microsoft Works or other types of spreadsheet are not suitable.
As Exl-Plan Basic incorporates over 6,000 formulae
and more than a hundred preprogrammed menus & buttons you only
need a very
basic knowledge of Excel to prepare highly professional and presentable
projections. If you are an advanced Excel user, you can utilize
your expertise to enhance and expand Exl-Plan to meet particular needs
- see Extending
Exl-Plan in the FAQs for Users. Exl-Plan
Basic is suitable for managers and business people with minimal
previous experience of
financial or business planning as well as for experienced planners,
accountants, consultants and model-builders.
Exl-Plan
Basic offers lots of help and support. It contains
extensive online help (90+ topics - click thumb opposite to see shot
of HTML Help), a printable 100-page manual and a series of Flash-based
tutorials (running for 12 minutes) covering setting up Excel, getting
started and the basics of using Exl-Plan.
For your business plan, Exl-Plan Basic includes a freeBusiness
Plan Template for Word (48 pages) and a complementary Guide (supplied
as a 90+ topic Help file and as a 100+ page PDF file for printing).
Exl-Plan Basic will appeal to newcomers to business
planning as well to experienced professional advisers. It is extremely
useful as a planner in its own right and is also an ideal introduction
to the more powerful versions. A user of Basic will
be at home with these versions as the entire Exl-Plan range uses similar
structures and approaches throughout. Also, purchasers of Exl-Plan Basic can
avail of special discounts when trading up to more powerful versions.
You can get trial copy downloads for entire
Exl-Plan range here or
purchase for immediate download/ use here.
Special price discounts are available to purchasers of Exl-Plan Basic who
subsequently wish to trade up to a more powerful version of Exl-Plan
- get details.
Check these benefits of Exl-Plan Basic:
Save time
and money and contribute substantial business, financial and spreadsheet know-how to
your plan - check all the benefits.
Get a better-built planner, with more features and
facilities, in a fraction of the time and cost that it would take
a very experienced spreadsheet user with a financial background
to develop a planner from the ground up.
It allows you to concentrate
on the task of planning rather than spreadsheet programming.
It frees you from having to write hundreds of formulae and routines
and allows you to spend more time to researching assumptions
and evaluating the resultant projections.
It
can help you to improve
plans and performance.
At the very minimum, it will help you to avoid costly mistakes
which could arise in the absence of a clear plan for your business.
Exl-Plan Basic projects
full-year income statements (profit and loss accounts), cash flow projections
(click thumb opposite to see report) and statements, balance sheets and
ratio analyses for five years ahead based on annual assumptions inserted
by the user. It also contains an opening balance sheet along with a summary
income statement for the year preceding the start of the projections.
For example, if projections start in April 2006, an income statement
for the year ending March 2005 could be entered for reference or comparison
purposes.
In addition to comprehensive pro-forma reports, Exl-Plan Basic generates
the following output:
Report containing key financial and performance ratios.
Dashboard (click
thumb opposite to view dashboard) containing summary tables, charts
and expert assessments of prime ratios.
An eight-page Textual Summary Report containing a summary of the
projections in textual form with embedded values, graphs and tables.
Ideal as the basis for the financial section of a business plan.
Eleven sets of charts showing key annual projections
and ratios for dozens of variables.
Exl-Plan Basic's facilities and features include the following:
Facilities for inserting constant and varying annual assumptions.
Selective what-if, or sensitivity analysis, covering the
five years.
Book-marking facility to allow a user mark a location within
a worksheet and to return quickly to it.
Multiple
safeguards to protect formulae etc. and help prevent accidental
changes being made to worksheets.
Extensive
ratio analyses for five years - click thumb opposite to view ratios'
report.
Comprehensive online help.
Comprehensive set of tailored toolbar buttons.
Error trapping to advise when data entry
or calculation errors arise.
Full access to worksheets and formulae to facilitate customization
and expansion.
Exl-Plan Basic can be automatically switched between
UK/ International and US/ Canadian accounting formats, terminologies,
spellings etc.
Exl-Plan Basic is very "open" and
can be expanded or customized by users. The online help and manual
describe almost twenty techniques or procedures for extending and tailoring
Exl-Plan. As supplied, Exl-Plan Basic handles the
following ranges of assumptions:
2.1 Sales, Cost, Inventory & Overhead Assumptions
The range of sales, cost, inventory and overhead expenses assumptions
include:
Annual sales forecasts for six product/market
subgroups which can be specified as values and/or volumes/prices.
Facilities for specifying the cost of materials/goods (or goods
for resale) in percentage terms and for setting material inventory
targets. These can be ignored by "pure" service businesses.
Direct labor head count (and costs) and four other user-definable
direct/variable cost categories.
The range of fixed asset, investment and financing assumptions include:
Fixed assets with provision for handling depreciation and additions/disposals.
Amortization of intangible assets.
Separate interest rates for cash balances, overdraft and long-term
debt.
Facilities for increasing and decreasing long-term debt and assigning
it between short- and long-term liabilities.
Share issues, dividends and corporation tax or, for sole traders,
cash injections/ drawings and income tax.
2.3 Credit Assumptions & Input/Output Taxes
The range of credit assumptions and input/output tax - Sales Taxes,
Value Added Tax (VAT) and Goods & Services Tax (GST) - facilities
include:
Provision for setting credit terms for
sales and related purchases (materials or goods for resale).
Facilities for delaying payment of payroll taxes/benefits, dividends,
corporation tax and capital expenditure.
Sales/output tax rates can be set for sales.
Where taxes apply to inputs, there are facilities for setting
different tax rates for inputs & capital expenditure and for
delaying net payments.
Exl-Plan Basic is the most basic version in the
Exl-Plan range. The other versions - Micro, Lite, Pro, Super, Super
Plus, Ultra and Ultra Plus - are
much more powerful and contain many additional
features and facilities. They cover monthly/quarterly projections
for time horizons ranging from three to seven years and are available
for immediately purchase/ use and as remotely-upgradeable
trial copies from S$49 to US$289. Further
details, download trial copies, FAQs and purchase/
upgrade methods.
Exl-Plan Basic incorporate
extensive online help (in both WinHelp and HTML formats)
covering over 90 topics covering:
Very Quick Start
Welcome to Exl-Plan
Financial Modeling & Business Planning
Introducing Exl-Plan
Loading Exl-Plan for the First Time
Getting Orientated with Exl-Plan
Using Exl-Plan
Guidance on Entering Assumptions
Calculation Error Messages
Changing Exl-Plan
Support & Assistance
It also includes a printable 100-page manual and a series of Flash-based
tutorials (running for 12 minutes) covering setting up Excel, getting started
and the basics of using Exl-Plan. Also supplied is a freeBusiness Plan Template for Word (48 pages) and a complementary Guide (supplied as
a 90+ topic Help file and as a 100+ page PDF file for printing).
This support is
supplemented by regularly updated Frequently
Answered Questions for Users and both telephone and email assistance
is provided to resolve queries about using and expanding Exl-Plan
- see also Support for Users.
Because
Exl-Plan Basic is extensively menu driven, minimal Excel
expertise is required. At the same time, experienced
spreadsheet users can use Exl-Plan's open approach to extend
and modify worksheets within Exl-Plan. Only limited Excel expertise
(e.g. creating simple formulae, inserting rows and similar) is needed
to make some of the most powerful and useful expansions to Exl-Plan.
Intending users only need a (very) basic understanding
of income statements, cash flow and balance sheets in order to get to
grips with Exl-Plan Basic.
A trial copy of Exl-Plan Basic can
be downloaded for exploration and evaluation. If suitable,
it can be remotely upgraded from trial to fully-operational.
Alternatively, a fully-operational copy of Exl-Plan Basic can
be acquired immediately following payment.
Note: Special price discounts are available
to purchasers of Exl-Plan Basic who subsequently wish
to trade up to a more powerful version of Exl-Plan - get details.
Once installed, do one of the following to run Exl-Plan Basic:
Select Exl-Plan from the Start > Programs menu
(for W95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7). You can also access
Exl-Plan Basic's online help and accompanying manual
and Flash-based tutorials. or
Load Excel and open the EXLPLAN.XLS file from within EXL*
subdirectory or folder specified during installation (this
may be located below the EXCEL subdirectory or MY DOCUMENTS
folder).
Online Tutorial
View a Tutorial
(2 minutes) on how to set up Excel and load Exl-Plan Basic.
*
* if using Excel 2007 or 2010, see the special Frequently
Asked Questions about using Exl-Plan with Excel 2007 or 2010.
To fully load Exl-Plan Basic, you may need to change
Excel's security setting to Medium to allow
Exl-Plan's extensive macros to run (via Tools | Macro | Security)
- click thumbs below for guidance. For more help, refer
to the Tutorial or
to Loading
and Running Problems at the Frequently
Asked Questions for Newcomers. This guidance relates
to Excel 5, 7, 8, 95, 97, 2000, XP and 2003. If using Excel 2007 or 2010, see Frequently Asked Questions for Using Excel 2007 & 2010.
Load Excel, select Tools,
Macro, Security ...
... click Medium security
level and close Excel.
Reload Excel,
load Exl-Plan and, when prompted, enable macros.
Click here to
access more detailed Installation & Running Notes. We suggest
that you print these notes for reference. Once installed, you
can directly access Exl-Plan's Online Help from within Exl-Plan,
or via the Start > Programs menu option (W95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7).
If running W95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Win7 and using Word 97,
2000, XP, 2007, you will be able to access Free-Plan, Business
Plan Guide and Template,
through the Programs menu option for Exl-Plan.
Exl-Plan Basic is the least detailed and powerful version in the Exl-Plan
range. All other versions, cover monthly and quarterly projections
for periods ranging from three to seven years. They also accommodate
many more variables and include additional tools and facilities.
Quick Guide to Exl-Plan Versions
The following table offers you guidance on the suitability of all versions for
different size firms. The complexity of your business, sector, detail/sophistication
required, planning objectives and your expertise should also be considered.
* Super Plus handles ten revenue/cost streams instead of six for
Super
** Ultra generates monthly projections for initial three years instead
of one year with Super
*** Ultra Plus handles ten revenue/cost streams instead of six for
Ultra
The basic specifications and prices of the all versions
of Exl-Plan is summarized below:
Note: If you need projections covering just 12
months, have a look at Cashflow Plan,
our range of fully-integrated cash flow planners which generate projections
for 12 months ahead and incorporate a roll-forward facility to simplify
regular updating of projections. Details and
trial-version
downloads.