Millions of small business owners have used LivePlan products to start their businesses. Every week, we hear stories from small business owners thanking us for helping them develop a business plan and secure funding.

This past month, I used the LivePlan Dashboard for the first time at a board meeting for a nonprofit that I volunteer at. We reviewed our budget and how we were performing compared to our plan.

Palo Alto Software does more than build LivePlan, the world's best business planning software. We also run Bplans, a website dedicated to original and curated business planning and business management content.

The LivePlan Pitch has always been a great way to create a quick overview of your business.

As an alternative to the Business Model Canvas, the LivePlan Pitch helps you summarize your business opportunity, target market, competition, and business model—quickly and easily.

Are you looking for ways to begin Strategic Advising as a service to small business clients, but are unsure where to start? The work can feel “big” if it’s new for you.

If you want to know how your business compares to the competition, you can find your answer in industry benchmarks. Benchmarks are industry standards, or guidelines, for key financial metrics. Basically, they represent the average of key numbers collected from many different businesses and then sorted by industry.

Are you happy at work? Do you find satisfaction in the way you spend your day? Is work-satisfaction something you even think about? Advisory services could be your answer.

When you’re looking toward the future, one of the best ways to ensure that your predictions are accurate is by looking at the past. 2018 was a year full of technical advances and major changes. AI, VR, AR, and machine learning were everywhere.

“My clients don’t want this.”

This is what I hear from many accountants when I talk to them about Strategic Advising.

“I wish my accountant would explain things better.”

This is what I hear from small businesses owners—even my artist friend who I saw last week. We were catching up and I began talking about Strategic Advising. “What?!” he said. “I would love it if my accountant would provide that kind of help!”

Somewhere there is a disconnect.

Here’s the simple truth of business: Without customers to buy your products, you’re not going to make any money. Almost every decision you make—what you sell, how much you sell it for, where you’re located, who you hire—is made with the intention of bringing in the maximum number of customers to your store, and to optimize the likelihood that they’ll buy your products while they’re there.

I’ve done strategic planning for organizations of all kinds: public, private, growing corporations seeking IPO, and nonprofits. At the core of this work is financial modeling and forecasting. It doesn’t so much matter the type of business—the work is essentially the same:

We’ve had a great year teaming up with Mark Wickersham to help more accountants adopt value-based pricing for advisory services in their firms. In the past few years, these two concepts have grown from buzzwords to important strategies for accountants, helping them get paid fairly for their services in a changing industry.

LivePlan’s mission is to help people succeed in business, both accountants and their small business clients, which makes QuickBooks Connect the ideal conference for us.

We’ve just released some exciting updates to LivePlan that make it easier to create new financial forecasts. We’ve also given you a new option to forecast cost of goods sold and improved how we provide help.

Few professional experiences can be quite as exciting, rewarding, or potentially overwhelming as starting a new business. As a new business owner, you’re going to need all the practical and impartial advice you can get.