It’s February, and the excitement and sparkle of the new year are starting to fade. Maybe you abandoned your resolutions. And if you never got around to fleshing out big plans for 2015, you will fail- or at least that’s what the adage tells us. It doesn’t matter when you decide to put a plan together- as long as you do it. There are two resources that I use and recommend to clients when it comes to financial plans.
Mint.com For Personal Finance Planning
Mint.com is a great web resource for personal financial planning. Mint lets you connect to bank, credit card, and investment accounts to track your spending and calculate your net worth. It also enables you to create budgets and set financial goals. When I saw graphs of my investment accounts underperforming the S&P, I knew it was time to make changes to meet my retirement goals. The best part about Mint? It’s free!
Liveplan.com For Business Finance
CPAs learn a lot about the analysis we can do with the information in a business’s financial reports. LivePlan is unique in that it performs financial analysis for you. Connect your Xero, QuickBooks desktop, or QuickBooks Online and watch LivePlan create graphs that will give you insights into your business that you can’t get from staring at income statements and balance sheets. When I first set up LivePlan, I was shocked to learn how few resources I was putting into marketing. Now I have a plan for serious growth in my business.
Did I mention that I was one of the first 50 professionals to become a certified LivePlan Expert in the country? If you are interested in learning more about LivePlan, schedule a meeting with me.
Now that you have the resources, it’s time to create those big financial plans. Remember, what is measured improves, so look at your progress every month. A failure to do that is inviting failure. If you know that it’s asking for failure, isn’t it a plan to fail?
Need help with Mint.com or LivePlan.com? Set up a meeting with me here.
