StratPad business plan now integrates with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online

StratPad writes: Are you using Intuit’s QuickBooks Online (QBO) to create invoices and do your bookkeeping? Are you an accountant or bookkeeper who uses QBO with your clients?
Any StratPad business plan file can now link to a QBO file in real-time. You’ll see up-to-the-second financial results graphed against your business plan’s projections including revenue, cost of goods sold, expenses, net income, cash, accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Regularly monitoring your progress against your plan is one of the best habits of success. It allows you to see issues in time to take appropriate action. And it allows you to see opportunities sooner and capitalize on them.

The StratPad/QBO integration has been carefully designed to support multiple connections. Every one of your StratPad plans can connect to a different QBO file. This lets an accountant, for example, support multiple clients.

You can also have multiple StratPad plans that connect to the same QBO file. This allows you to have multiple iterations of your business plan with each one connecting to your live QBO file.

The StratPad/QBO link is free to anyone with both a valid StratPad account AND a valid QBO account.

Connecting a StratPad plan to your QBO file is very easy:
1. Sign up for a QBO account.
2. Sign in to StratPad. NOTE: you can also click the “Sign in with Intuit” button, if you prefer.
3. From the “Select Your StratFiles” menu (at the top right corner) select the plan you’d like to link to your QBO file.
4. Click on “Write Your Plan” in the left-side menu.
5. Click “About Your Company” in the left-side menu.
6. Click the “Connect to QuickBooks” button. You may have to sign in to QuickBooks if you haven’t already.
7. Select the QBO file you’d like to link to and then click the Authorize button.
Your business plan and your QBO file are now connected.
Now select which financial metrics you’d like to chart:
1. Click “Track Your Progress” on the left-hand menu.
2. Click on “Summary”.
3. Click the “Add Chart” button (at the bottom of the Summary screen).
4. In the Source field, scroll down to the “Projections” items and select one of the financial metrics (Revenue, Expenses, Cash, Net Income, etc.).
5. Change the title and colour if you wish.
6. Click the “Save Chart” button.
7. Select this chart from the left-hand menu.
8. The chart will appear and show projected values (if there are any). To connect this chart to QBO (rather than entering actual values manually):
a. Open the Chart Controls menu
b. Click the “Values” button
c. Click the “Link to QuickBooks” button
You’ll now see the actual values from your QBO file beside the projected values from your business plan. Every time you refresh this chart the values from QBO are also refreshed so you can be assured of having up-to-the-second values.
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So we wondered, "Who is Stratpad"?  and 1000StartUps writes: Founder Alex Glassey

I didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur; it came out of necessity. In my 20s, my life circumstances changed suddenly and I became a single parent to my two young children. At the time I had a corporate job, working long hours and traveling a lot. I had to find a way to work from home and set my own hours. I started writing a software program for physiotherapists, working on it after I put the kids to bed. It enabled me to start my first company and quit my day job. Over the next 20 years, I founded and sold two more tech companies. I also started consulting and found it very inspiring to work with other entrepreneurs. I went back to school in my 40s to get my MBA so I could teach (which I now do at Royal Roads University in Victoria). Business education at that time was really focused on big business; it didn’t offer much for entrepreneurs. I saw an opportunity to take what I had learned and develop a way of doing strategy and business planning that meets the unique needs of small business. That became the basis for StratPad, which is a tool that helps entrepreneurs harness the power of strategy to take their business forward. Technology is democratizing education and making many more tools available to entrepreneurs. I’m happy to be in the business of empowering entrepreneurs. If we can improve their success, we’ll strengthen societies everywhere. 

Elevator Pitch

Our company helps startups and small businesses grow. We provide software, online training and live workshops that make strategy and business planning simple and practical for entrepreneurs. Our StratPad software teaches business basics and helps entrepreneurs prepare a short business plan that focuses on strategy. StratPad uses interactive text and video to guide users through the strategic planning process. Users respond to simple questions that help them define a strategic goal for their business, along with activities, timelines and financials. Based on their answers, StratPad creates all the investor-ready reports they need, including a summary business plan. StratPad then links strategy and execution with built-in business intelligence that lets entrepreneurs track their progress on financial and other metrics. StratPad offers free, on-demand video training, a user forum and e-mail support. We offer a free course on financial statements via our web site and on Udemy.com. StratPad is an iPad app, available in free and paid editions ranging from US$9.99 to $54.99. The web version will launch in Fall 2013. 

Aha! Moment

What I saw in my consulting practice (and this is supported by the research), is that most entrepreneurs don’t fail because they’re not smart enough or don’t work hard enough. They fail because they don’t have the right tools to succeed: the business plan that helps them get the capital they need or the basic financial skills to manage their cash flow or a strategy to defend their uniqueness. That inspired me to create a simple, practical tool to help entrepreneurs do these things and increase their chances of success. 

Biggest Challenge

Our biggest challenge is competition. The market is saturated with business planning software, templates, courses and consultants. Many of our competitors, particularly in software, are bigger, better funded and/or better connected than we are. We’re not going to overcome our competitors. In fact, I tell entrepreneurs, “Don’t compete. Be unique.” StratPad stands out from the pack in several ways, but mainly it teaches a way of thinking. It puts strategy at the core of business planning and everything the company does. Our competitors focus on the writing of the business plan; they’re not focused on strategy or strengthening the thinking that goes into the plan. StratPad is unique because it provides insights into strategy, execution, alignment and financial consequences that are so critical to business success. And it does so in a simple, practical way that even someone with little or no background in business can use. But being unique isn’t enough; it’s too easy to copy what we do. We continually have to defend our uniqueness. That means adding value and we do that by listening to our customers and responding to their needs. For example, StratPad customers said they needed help understanding finance. We created a free online course to explain financial statements and we’re planning more free videos on finance. Customers told us they wanted help using their business plan to access capital and other resources to grow their business. We’re working on creating a Community within StratPad that matches users with funders and other services. 

Biggest Accomplishment

Entrepreneurs who use StratPad love it. Their reviews and ratings have made StratPad the #1 strategy and business planning app in the iPad App Store. We get e-mails everyday from customers telling us how StratPad has helped them in their business. Customer love is our biggest accomplishment, but we’ve also appreciated the recognition and support from the community. StratPad was named one of Forbes’ top 10 mobile apps for business in 2013. We’re also proud of our contribution to improving financial literacy for startups and small business. We were honoured to win Intuit’s Financial Literacy Startup Award and the People’s Choice Award at Startup Canada’s Bridging the Financial Literacy Gap event this year. 

Advice

Think through your business idea, test it on as many customers as you can, and figure out how you will be unique! Just because you can build something, doesn’t mean you should. And yes, you do need a business plan; it’s not so much about the document as it is about the thinking that goes into it. A good business planning process asks you the key questions to help clarify your thinking and support your assumptions. It doesn’t have to be a 100-page business plan -- one or two well thought-out pages can be perfect. 

Team

We’re a small team that consists of: Alex Glassey is the creator of StratPad and leads the team. Alex is a former “big five” consultant turned serial entrepreneur with four successful startups to his credit.Glassey is passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed. In addition to his own ventures, he advises startups and SMBs on growth strategies and has clients in North America and Europe. He speaks to business groups worldwide and teaches in the entrepreneurial program at Royal Roads University in Victoria. He has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Julian Wood is StratPad’s Chief Technology Officer. He is the former co-founder of Mobilesce, a Calgary-based firm specializing in mobile app development. Manuela Bizzotto is StratPad’s Communications Director. She brings years of experience as a communicator and publicist to StratPad’s PR and social media initiatives. Sam Estok is the graphic designer contracted to create the look and feel of StratPad. He is the principal at Faction23, based in Victoria BC. 

The Future

We aspire to become the premiere international portal for entrepreneurs seeking to grow their business. StratPad already provides entrepreneurs with a place where they can do their business planning, manage the execution of their plan, and tracks results. Our next step is to help entrepreneurs use their business plan to get the financing and resources they need to succeed. We plan to build an integrated "match-making" service within StratPad to connect users with funders and other services. Based on the unique needs identified in their business plan, StratPad will show users a list of appropriate funders and make a virtual introduction to these resources. Users will be able to send their business plan and other investor-ready documents to funders directly and securely within StratPad. We will also introduce users to other services: for example, local accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, consultants and graphic designers, and web hosting services. 

Looking For

We are looking for relationships with partners who can help us with customer acquisition. Our StratPad products are built to scale rapidly and our web release will make StratPad accessible to many more users. We welcome customer acquisition partners such as affiliates and business-to-business channels. We’d also love to hear from entrepreneurs, accelerators and consultants/coaches who want to host or facilitate our strategic business planning workshops in their communities.  Visit StratPad Here.