Open numbers are the honest part
Why Business Plan marks numbers it cannot know as needs your value, illustrative or to verify, and keeps a plan a draft until you confirm them.
A first draft of a business plan is full of numbers that are guesses. Most tools hide that. Business Plan shows it, on purpose.
Three flags#
When a forecast is started from a template, every number the template cannot know carries a flag. Needs your value means only you know it, such as what you will pay yourself. Illustrative means the template put in a sample so that the model runs, such as the rent. To verify means a default that depends on facts outside the app, such as a tax rate or a payroll cost for your country.
Why not just fill them in#
Because a plausible number is the most dangerous kind. A sample rent of nine hundred euros looks reasonable, passes every check and ends up in the bank's copy of your plan. If it is wrong, you find out later. A flag keeps the sample visibly a sample until you either confirm it or change it.
Who clears a flag#
Only you. Setting a number by hand confirms it. If an AI sets a number for you, it can write the value, but clearing the flag is the owner's step. The same rule holds if you edit a whole column by pasting: all or nothing, and a bad cell saves nothing.
What a draft means#
While any input is unconfirmed, the plan is marked as a draft, the export carries a watermark and a final export is refused. Readiness counts confirmed numbers as 25 of its 100 points, so the score tells you honestly how much of the plan is yours.
A short routine#
Open the checklist of open numbers. Take the three with the biggest effect: the sensitivity view shows which ones move the result most. Confirm those first. Leave the rest flagged and read the plan again.
The point#
A plan that says what it does not yet know is more useful than one that sounds finished. Lenders read the first kind with more trust, and you will too.
See open numbers.