Product Update: Existing Businesses Now Start in Full Financials
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Our latest product release went live last week. It’s light on new features, in part because we are now delivering smaller, more frequent releases (every three weeks, rather than monthly) and in part because we are working on a couple of larger features that will be going live soon. Keep an eye out for some cool stuff to come.
In the meantime, the biggest change in this release is for companies that are already up and running…
Existing businesses now start in full financials
As you probably know, we offer a choice between two levels of detail in your financial projections. You can stick with “basic financials,” which just includes a revenue forecast, budget, personnel plan, and profit and loss statement. Or you can switch to “full financials” to add major purchases, loans, a balance sheet and a cash flow statement, and more.
Historically, we have started all companies in basic financials — enabling startups to figure out if their business model can generate a profit, and more generally just keeping things simple — and then left it up to you when to add the extra detail to your plan.
Customers with existing businesses have made it clear, though, that they would rather just start in full-financials mode. They already have starting balances, existing loans, and other financial information that require the additional details, so why not add that from the start?
We have now made that change. When creating a company, if you choose Existing Business, you will start in full financials. If you choose Startup, you will start in basic financials, as before, so that your financials will be more appropriately scaled for a new business. But you can always switch to full financials later.
Startup or existing? We’ve made the choice easier
Also, when you set up a new company, you’ll now find clearer descriptions for the Startup and Existing options to help you choose the best business plan for your situation:
Continued work to integrate LivePlan with QuickBooks
We are eager to offer our users the ability to connect the LivePlan Dashboard to QuickBooks. This has been a development priority for quite a while. The data we need from QuickBooks to drive the Dashboard metrics isn’t accessible through Intuit’s data service yet. We are actively collaborating with their technical team now, though, and expect to be able to deliver QuickBooks integration soon. Stay tuned!
How are we doing?
As always, we are eager to hear your thoughts on our latest work. What do you think of the new features? What would you like to see us tackle next? Click the Contact Us button at the top of the LivePlan app to share your feedback.
