If your company has multiple locations, or you have multiple business units operating together, LivePlan offers three different options for building your business plan.
Option #1: Naming forecast entries by division
This option is excellent if you need to end up with a single set of financial statements that represent all of your locations or business units combined.
When you create a Revenue stream, Direct Cost, Expense, or any other forecast entry, you can give it a descriptive name. With this option, you can name your forecast entries by the location or division they apply to, as shown below:
With itemized forecast entries in place, you can easily add this itemized detail to your Profit and Loss statement. The totals in the financial statements will represent all of the business units combined, but you'll be able to see line items for each location.
Option #2: Using multiple forecast scenarios
This option can work if you're forecasting for different locations of the same business. You'd create one company in LivePlan, and then complete the written portion of the plan for the business as a whole. Then you can attach multiple scenarios to this company, each representing a different location. LivePlan lets you attach up to 10 forecast scenarios to a single company.
Option #3: Using multiple companies
Suppose you're creating plans for separate business units that operate together. In that case, you may want to create a separate company to capture the unique written information and forecast data for each unit. In this case, you can create a new company for each unit or save some time by starting with a copy of an existing company and editing it.
There is no limit to the number of companies you can create in your account, but your account will have a limit to the number of companies that can be active for editing at any given time. Even so, switching between companies in your account at any time is straightforward.
Can the individual plans or forecast scenarios be combined?
If you've created a separate company for each business unit, the resulting business plans will be living documents you can update anytime. LivePlan isn't configured to combine them into a single, overarching business plan. Still, you can download the individual plan documents and even use each company's Dashboard tab to track how each business unit is performing against its forecast.
Note: If you need a single set of financials, use Option #1 above.
If you've attached multiple forecast scenarios to a single company, you can view any of these scenarios in the business plan, and switching between them is straightforward. You can also download individual copies of the plan with any one of the forecast scenarios selected.
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