Plan vs. Actual, Part 1: Implement Your Plan and Keep It Alive

As you review implementation results with the people responsible, you will often find the need to set new goals and make course corrections. Keep track of the original plan and manage changes carefully. Although changes should be made only with good reason, don’t be afraid to update your plan and keep it alive. Business Plan Pro Premier Edition has Planned, Actual and Variance tables, complete with linked formulas, to facilitate active cash flow analysis.

Prescription for live planning

1. After your plan starts, save a copy of your plan in Business Plan Pro and then type actual results into the sales forecast, profit and loss, and milestones Actual tables. Then watch what the variance views tell you.
2. Note when actual results indicate you need to make changes.
3. Stay in the Business Plan Pro Actual mode and make adjustments to future months of your Actual cash plan. After all, it is already more accurate than the original plan, because it has actual results for the months already completed.
4. As each month closes, type actual results over your revised plan numbers into the Actual area.

The starting sales plan
The example begins in this first illustration with the sales forecast imported from a finished business plan, developed in Business Plan Pro.

Illustration 1: Beginning Sales Plan

Actual results for sales
In the next illustration, you see the actual results for the same company for the first three months of the plan, at the end of March, showing actual sales numbers.

Illustration 2: Actual Sales Results