In this article:
The benefits of collaboration in business planning
It is very possible to create a business plan by yourself. However, whether it's advisors working with clients, consultants guiding business owners, or internal teams working together, collaborative business planning can offer a lot of value that cannot be found working solo. When different perspectives come together, decision-making improves, blind spots are reduced, and ideas can be more fully realized. LivePlan is designed to make collaboration seamless, providing features that allow team members to contribute effectively to the plan, creating a solid foundation for success.
Whether your team has used LivePlan or not, it's easy to add them to your account in the form of contributors. Each LivePlan account includes up to 5 collaborating users by default, allowing you to get started with your team right away. Contributors can view, edit, and provide input, turning any LivePlan account into a team project.
Our comprehensive guide to adding users to your LivePlan account: Adding and removing contributors and guests
Collaborating on strategy for startups
The early stages of a startup are essential for establishing strategy and defining a vision. This period can benefit greatly from a collaborative approach, as incorporating diverse perspectives and expert advice often results in more comprehensive strategies and well-rounded decision-making.
LivePlan's in-app communication and organizational tools make it easy to share feedback and brainstorm ideas while writing your business plan. These tools are built right into the planning and forecasting steps, with The Guide providing an at-a-glance view of your plan's progress to help keep everyone on the same page as they work together.
Adapting an existing business as a team
Collaborative forecasting keeps financials updated, allowing teams to adapt to changes in revenue or expenses as they occur. Identifying trends is crucial, as these trends could present opportunities or potential issues to avoid. Financial experts, such as accountants or advisors, often play a key role, using their specialized knowledge to help businesses understand trends and identify opportunities or risks.
In LivePlan, whether your team is working with financial experts or not, features like the Dashboard and the Monthly Review make financial analysis easier for the entire team to understand. These tools showcase key insights and help your team identify trends, making reviewing and revising your financials a much more efficient and intuitive process.
Collaborative features in LivePlan
LivePlan includes a range of collaborative features designed to make collaboration easy, offering in-app communication tools to streamline real-time feedback, customizable levels of access permissions for each team member, and organizational markers to easily highlight work and track updates.
User Management Tools and Permissions: LivePlan offers user management tools that allow you to assign specific permissions to contributors, ensuring that the right people have access to the appropriate tools needed for their role in the project.
To learn more about user management, please visit our guide to Changing contributor and guest user roles and permissions
Plan Comments and Forecast Notes: In-app comments in the plan and notes in the forecast provide teams with the means to share ideas, ask questions ahead of advisory feedback, and refine details as a group. These tools help ensure communication is easy and transparent, making collaboration efficient and keeping the team roadmap aligned.
You can find more information about these features in these guides for commenting in the plan and making notes in the forecast.
Organizational Tools - The Guide, Progress Indicators, and Milestones: These markers are valuable even when used for organization when working solo. However, when used with a team, these tools make your collaboration much more efficient and intuitive to segment your work amongst multiple team members.
The Guide: This feature provides a snapshot of where you are in the project, serves as a central hub, and provides a quick high-level overview of ongoing progress.
Progress Indicators: Track the status of each part of the plan and forecast, showing what has been completed and what still needs work. This can help you and your team stay organized and focused on what needs attention at that time, keeping your work productive and targeted.
Milestones: This feature is for setting important milestones within your business plan, allowing you to define clear goals and assign responsibilities. Beyond milestone tracking, this tool serves as an organizational aid within LivePlan, allowing teams to keep tasks, timelines, and objectives aligned with the overall strategy of a project.
You can find more tips on setting team goals over on our sister site, Bplans
What if you and your team need help?
LivePlan offers a variety of self-guided resources to support you and your team in becoming stronger business planners. The LivePlan Blog provides clear advice on starting and managing a small business, while our sister site, Bplans, has how-tos, checklists, guides, and sample plans to explore. You can also join our LivePlan Webinars to learn directly from our executive team and experienced business professionals, who share tips and insights on maximizing LivePlan's potential for your business.
If you need expert help troubleshooting and learning how to use LivePlan, our Customer Advocacy Team is here to help Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time. If you’d prefer hands-on help, our Professional Services team is available to aid you with many different options, tailored to you and your team's goals.