Navigation: finding your way in the Business Planner

Video: how to move between companies, sections and steps.

Hardly anyone writes a business plan from front to back. You enter your revenue, notice the marketing doesn't add up yet, and go back to the SWOT. The Business Planner is built for that back and forth. With three levels and a fixed menu, you always know where you are and where to go next.

Three levels: company, section and step

Where to find what

• Left-hand menu: first your companies, then the overview and the seven sections of the plan you have open.
• Sections with an arrow: these fold open to show their sub-steps. Under Strategy, those are the inventory, the confrontation and the choices.
• Tabs: the same sub-steps also appear at the top of the page, so you can switch without using the menu.
• Breadcrumb trail: the line below the page title takes you back to your company or the level above in one click.
• Save and Next: at the bottom of the page, you store your work and move on to the next step.
• Overview: shows the progress and next actions for the whole plan.

How it works in practice

The owner of the salon in our demo is working on her strategic choices. Halfway through, she realizes one weakness in the SWOT is too vague. She opens Strategy in the menu, picks the inventory, rewrites the point and saves. One click on the Strategic choices tab and she is back exactly where she was. No searching, no double work.