Dynamic Business Planner, business plan software for SMEs

The CeBi financial statement format (Centrale dei Bilanci) is a systematic reclassification of statutory financial statements prepared under Articles 2424-2427 of the Italian Civil Code, implementing the Fourth EEC Directive: it transforms the legal/scalar format into a functional format for credit analysis. CeBi financial statements are the standard adopted by Italian banks to assess counterparties and make financial statements of companies in different sectors comparable. It is possible to start from statutory financial statements, but they must still be converted to the CeBi format before being entered into Dynamic Business Planner (DBP): this reclassification must be performed outside the platform.

The most effective way to assess the soundness of the assumptions underlying the plan is to use the “Scenarios” feature in Dynamic Business Planner (DBP). The tool allows users to duplicate the original plan and make controlled changes to one component at a time, so that the impact of each variation can be isolated. Users can introduce alternative dynamics compared with the initial assumptions or simulate real shocks, such as an adverse macroeconomic scenario or a contraction in demand. The alternative financial statements generated provide a basis for comparative analysis against the original plan, in absolute or percentage terms. This sensitivity analysis is required by banks during credit assessment under the EBA Guidelines on loan origination and monitoring (EBA/GL/2020/06).

Article 2086 of the Italian Civil Code, as amended by the Business Crisis Code (Legislative Decree 14/2019), requires entrepreneurs to establish an organizational, administrative and accounting structure suited to the nature and size of the company, including for the purpose of promptly detecting any signs of crisis. The Crisis Dashboard integrated into Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) supports this obligation by combining two levels of analysis: trend indicators compared with historical performance and the plan, and indicators defined specifically for the relevant sector and compared with thresholds customized to the company's characteristics. As values approach critical levels, the indicators are highlighted in orange and, when thresholds are exceeded, in red. This enables the administrative body to activate the measures provided for by law before the crisis materializes.

In statutory financial statements, financial debt is represented as a balance at a given date: this snapshot does not allow principal repayments, interest and residual maturity to be projected correctly over the plan years. Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) includes the “Existing financing” sheet, which allows granular details of individual debt positions to be entered, including amortization schedule, interest rate and maturities. The platform automatically reconstructs debt dynamics over future financial years, consistently feeding both the income statement (financial expenses), the balance sheet (net financial position) and cash flows. This feature is essential for producing credible plans for a bank or investor.

Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) does not start from a blank sheet. Instead, it provides users with a structured base of estimates for the main financial statement items, automatically calculated from the historical performance of previous financial years. These forecasts are consistent with the assumptions made about revenue evolution and provide an initial forward-looking picture aligned with the company's dynamics. From this base, each item can be modified at any time, and each change automatically updates the related components, ensuring accounting consistency across the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. This guided approach significantly reduces plan preparation time and allows users to assess the impact of changes on projections in real time.

A business plan is the document that translates a business idea into a multi-year economic and financial model, structured around expected income statement, balance sheet and cash flow data. Preparing one is not formally mandatory in general terms, but it becomes necessary to access bank financing, attract investors or participate in public calls for funding. From a regulatory standpoint, Article 2086 of the Italian Civil Code, as amended by the Business Crisis Code (Legislative Decree 14/2019), requires entrepreneurs to adopt organizational, administrative and accounting structures suitable for the timely detection of crisis: the business plan is a central tool for fulfilling this obligation. Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) allows users to produce it according to the standards expected by the Italian banking system and integrates it with the Crisis Dashboard for monitoring early warning indicators.

To build a solid business plan, it is advisable to start by identifying the investments needed to develop the initiative, whether for a new business line or for productivity improvement projects in strategic areas. These investments must be matched with the related sources of funding, distinguishing between equity and debt capital to ensure sustainable financial balance. At the same time, it is essential to estimate expected revenues while considering market dynamics and the company's competitive positioning. Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) structures the creation of a new plan in exactly this order: users are guided to enter planned investments and related funding sources first, then revenue assumptions, and finally they see the effects automatically propagate to the other financial statement items.

Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) is designed with a guided interface and simplified operating logic, created to support even non-expert users in activities that would otherwise require specific technical skills. All features are described in detail in the online manual, which is continuously updated to reflect product evolution and the introduction of new features. The manual is structured to allow users to progressively explore the different areas of the platform, from reclassifying historical financial statements to building the forward-looking plan, up to scenario analysis and the Crisis Dashboard. This allows users to gain operational autonomy gradually and improve the quality of the analyses produced over time.

In Dynamic Business Planner (DBP), it is possible to manage divestment transactions and sales of business assets, both tangible and intangible, while fully representing choices to reduce or reallocate investments over time. The feature is not implemented through a single dedicated procedure, but requires the transaction to be reconstructed through a sequence of steps that include updating balance sheet items, cash and the economic effects connected with the disposal (capital gains, capital losses, reversal of accumulated depreciation). The steps are described in detail in the online manual. This approach ensures full accounting consistency of the transaction across all plan statements.

Excel is still the most widely used tool for building business plans, but it has well-known structural limitations: lack of version control, risk of formula errors, difficulty updating the model when assumptions change, and lack of accounting consistency across statements. Dynamic Business Planner (DBP) overcomes these limits by natively applying the accounting relationships between income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement: every change automatically propagates to the linked items. The platform is also aligned with the CeBi format required by banks and includes specific modules (Crisis Dashboard, Scenarios, Financing) that would need to be rebuilt manually in Excel. The time needed to prepare a plan is significantly reduced compared with building an Excel file from scratch.