While Exl-Plan Free is very useful in its own
right, it
is also a great introduction to the entire Exl-Plan
range. Once you have used Free, you'll be completely at home with
the other more powerful versions which cover longer time horizons,
handle more variables and contain additional facilities. Check here
for details and specs.
Exl-Plan
Free is an Excel-based business financial planner for
"first-cut" or high-level projections. Based on your assumptions,
Exl-Plan generates fully-integrated annual projections (income
statements, cashflows, balances sheets etc.) for two years
ahead using either UK/ International or US/
Canadian accounting
conventions. It requires Excel (releases 5, 7, 8, 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003 or 2007) running on Windows (95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista).
It includes a free 150-page Business Plan Guide and Word-based Template. Check the advantages
of using Exl-Plan instead of building your own spreadsheet planner. Click
thumb opposite to see Exl-Plan Free's welcome screen
with menus, buttons and registration number.
Exl-Plan
Free is the most basic version in the
Exl-Plan range of nine planners offering different levels of detail
and complexity - get details or
trial downloads for the full range.
Exl-Plan Free is freeware and requires no payment
for ongoing use. It is identical in all key respects to Exl-Plan Basic (US$29)
except that it generates projections for just two years instead
of five with Basic. If you need 5-year
projections, get more about Basichere.
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 Free incorporates extensive formulae and preprogrammed menus
and buttons. You only need a very basic knowledge of Excel to prepare
highly professional and presentable projections. Advanced Excel users
can utilize their expertise to enhance and expand Exl-Plan to meet their
particular needs.
Exl-Plan Free offers lots of help and support.
It contains extensive online help, a printable 95-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.
The manual can be viewed here as a PDF (MANUAL_EXL-PLAN_FREE.PDF -
1000k) or as web
pages.
Exl-Plan
Free is very suitable for generating high-level
financial projections for business and cashflow planning for both
smaller and larger businesses. It is also an ideal introduction
to financial modeling for first-time planners and to the other more
extensive and powerful planners within the Exl-Plan
range. Here's
what Tucows said about Exl-Plan Free (awarded 4 Cows):
This program is great for budgeting, cash flow forecasting,
and generating check balance reports. Create a variety of different charts and
graphs for managing monthly sales and income. Exl-Plan Free works well for both
new and established businesses. Whether you have a financial background or not,
creating plans is a breeze with Exl-Plan Free.
The Exl-Plan range also includes Basic, Micro, Lite, Pro,
Super, Super Plus, Ultra and Ultra Plus versions
which are much more powerful than Free and contain
many additional features and facilities. They cover monthly/quarterly
projections for time horizons ranging from three to seven years and
are for immediately purchase/ use and as remotely-upgradeable
trial copies from US$29 to US$289. Further
details,
download trial copies, FAQs and purchase/
upgrade options.
Note that Exl-Plan Free is identical in all key
respects to Exl-Plan Basic (US$29)
except that it generates projections for just two years
instead of five with Basic. If you need 5-year
projections, get more about Basichere.
Exl-Plan Free projects
full-year income statements (profit and loss accounts), cash flow projections
and statements, balance sheets and
ratio analyses for two 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 Free generates
the following output:
Report containing key financial and performance ratios.
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 Free's facilities and features include the following:
Facilities for inserting constant and varying annual assumptions.
Selective what-if, or sensitivity analysis, covering the
two 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 two years.
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 Free can
be automatically switched between UK/ International and US/ Canadian
accounting formats, terminologies, spellings etc.
Exl-Plan Free also includes a freeBusiness Plan Template for Word (48 pages - click thumb opposite
to enlarge view) and a complementary Guide (supplied
as a 90+ topic Help file and as a 100+ page PDF file for printing).
Exl-Plan Free 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 Free 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 Free 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 95-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. You can view the manual now as a PDF
(MANUAL_EXL-PLAN_FREE.PDF -
1000k) or as a series of web
pages.
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).
Because
Exl-Plan Free 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 Free and from there they can easily
move on to more detailed and powerful versions of Exl-Plan
(details).
Exl-Plan Free is completely free but
contains some initial restrictions. These are completely removed once
you have registered (for free) and Exl-Plan Free immediately
becomes fully usable and useful both as a package in its own right and
as a great introduction to the entire Exl-Plan range. No strings
attached, no spam or spyware !!! Note that our Privacy & Security
Statement applies to all registered and unregistered users.
To download Exl-Plan Free, go to Exl-Plan's download page and scroll down to Free in
the download table. You may wish to temporarily bookmark this
page to register Exl-Plan Free using the form below
once you have installed and loaded Exl-Plan Free !
Once you have downloaded Exl-Plan Free
(and unzipped, if appropriate), run the EXL*.EXE installation file and
you will be guided through the simple installation and registration procedures
- refer to the README.DOC file for further guidance. You will be informed
in README.DOC how to uninstall Exl-Plan Free.
When installed, do one of the following to run Exl-Plan Free:
Select Exl-Plan from the Start > Programs menu
(for W95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista). You can also access
Exl-Plan Free'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 Free.
*
VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE:
To fully load Exl-Plan Free, 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, see Frequently Asked Questions for Using
Excel 2007.
Load Excel, select Tools,
Macro, Security ...
... click Medium security
level and close Excel.
Reload Excel,
load Exl-Plan and, when prompted, enable macros.
Support for Exl-Plan
Free
Exl-Plan Free is unsupported but, for
assistance, refer to its online help; accompanying
manual and README.DOC files; Flash-based tutorials;
and the Exl-Plan
- FAQ for Users. If using Excel 2007, see FAQ
for Using Excel 2007. Tip: When
using Exl-Plan, make regular backup copies of the file
in use e.g. COPY-1.XLS, COPY-2.XLS, COPY-3.XLS and so on.
Note: Purchased copies of Exl-Plan
Basic, Micro, Lite, Pro, Super, Super Plus, Ultra and Ultra
Plus are fully
supported.
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).
If running W95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista 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.
Registration of Exl-Plan Free is simple and completely
free. No strings attached, no spam or spyware !!! Note that our Privacy & Security
Statement applies to all registered and unregistered users.
When you register Exl-Plan Free, you will be also automatically
registered for Free-Plan (so there is no need to submit a separate registration
request to use Free-Plan).
To register:
Download, install and run Exl-Plan Free. Then,
locate the Registration Code Number which is displayed in the form
???????-??-?? at the top right corner of the FRONT worksheet within
Exl-Plan - click the thumb opposite for guidance.
and
Send
an email to <exlfree@planware.org> quoting
your unique
Registration Code Number within the message's body and
await receipt of an Unlock Code. or Use the Registration Form below.
Online Tutorial
View a Tutorial
(2 minutes) on how to set up Excel and load Exl-Plan Free.
*
Depending on your time of day, time zone and day of week, allow between
one and twelve hours to secure the unlock code by email (in plain text
with no attachments).
Note that:
If you don't hear from us within 24 hours, make contact again
but double-check your email address - wrong email addresses are
a problem! If you have recently registered, please, please don't register
a second time - it won't speed up the process. In common with most
Internet-based businesses, we operate extensive spam-filtering. If
we don't respond to your request, check your original message to ensure
that it is not "all caps", overly HTML-intensive or contains
other spam-related elements, and then resend it.
If your own email system uses aggressive anti-spam filtering,
you may never receive our email containing your unlock code. You should
temporarily add emails from "@planware.org" to your white or
friends list, or allow messages containing the phrase "Exl-Plan
Free" to pass through your filters. Do this
before you seek registration.
Instead of sending an email, you can use the Registration Form
below. You may wish to bookmark this page to return to it
once you have accessed Exl-Plan Free to secure its Registration Code
Number.
Allow between one and twelve hours to secure the
Unlock Code. Please register just once!
If you wish to make a comment etc., use this Contact
Form.
Exl-Plan Free is the least detailed and powerful version
in the Exl-Plan range. All other versions (aside from Basic), 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 are 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.
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