A New Restaurant

I have been asked if using business plan software is a good idea when writing a business plan for your restaurant.  My answer would be, “Yes and no.”

Business plan software is a great way to automate the process of writing a business plan, and there are some very good ones out there.  BPlans from Palo Alto Software is an excellent program.  Once Once you fill in the information the program formats it, and puts it all into a presentable form.  It definetly saves you a lot of time there.

Where you have to be careful with business plan software is that it allows you to get lazy.  BPlans comes with hundreds of templates and examples that make it possible to “borrow” from the template for your own projections.  Bad idea!

Think back to what the purpose of your business plan is.  While most people focus on it as a tool to get financing, the bigger job is to make you focus on your business, and make a plan about your restaurants future.  That can only happen if you do your homework, and focus on all of the nitty-gritty details.  It means doing your market and competitive research.  It means looking at the economics of your location, and making realistic projections based on what is going on in your area.  No software or template will be able to do that as accurately as you can.  It takes hard work, but if you want your restaurant to succeed it is a necessary process.

If you are doing your homework to collect and analyze the information all along the way, then by all means use a good business plan software program.  The key to success is doing your due diligence, and knowing your business inside and out.