The Scotia Plan Writer for business at a Glance
1. First, you’ll select the sample plan that best reflects your business. This sample serves
as a guide while you’re creating your own plan and you can access it at any time. You
can cut and paste relevant text directly into your plan, or just view the sample to help
give you some ideas of what to include in your plan. You can also print the sample plan
from the “Help” menu to read at your convenience.
2. Once you’ve selected your sample plan, you’ll go on to learn what your plan can do for
you, what information you should include and some tips to help you write it. You can
navigate throughout the Scotia Plan Writer for business using the left side tool bar or
the navigation buttons on the bottom of each page.
3. In section 2, you’ll begin to write your plan. Once you’ve entered content on each
screen, you can click "Next" to proceed to the next section. If at any time you wish to save
your plan and exit the Scotia Plan Writer for business, click “Save”, located in the top menu.
4. To easily view which sections you’ve completed and which remain to be completed, use
the “click when complete” option, which tracks your progress as you go along. To check
your progress at any time, note the "Progress bar" along the bottom of the screen.
5. Also in section 2, you’ll identify your business structure. What you select here
determines the type of financial statements created in section 6.
6. Throughout the Scotia Plan Writer for business, you’ll see words highlighted in Red.
Clicking on a red word takes you directly to the corresponding glossary definition. You
can also access the "Glossary" from the top menu.
7. Also throughout you'll see a "More info" radio button and this symbol “ ” on most pages.
Clicking on these will take you to further details on many topics.
8. Once you’ve completed your plan, you can view or publish it in Word by clicking on
“Publish” from the top menu. Once in Word, you can use all of the features of Word,
including edit, format, spell check, cut and paste from files and preview before printing
it.
9. If you prefer to read the instructions before you create your plan, you can print a guide to
help complete the Scotia Plan Writer for business and read it at your convenience. You can
also print “Help on using this tool” to familiarize yourself with the program before you
begin using it.