Good Practice - Project
Digital business planning support for CAP beneficiaries in Italy: Business Plan On Line (BPOL)
An online business planning platform from Italy’s National RuralNetwork helps farmers strengthen financial skills, improve investment readiness and support sustainable rural development.
General information
Beneficiary type
- Public authority / body
Intervention type
- Technical Assistance
Summary
Business Plan OnLine (BPOL) is a good practice digital business planning tool developed within Italy’s National Rural Network to help farmers and other rural agrifood businesses improve financial planning for investment preparations. The platform supports users in building structured business plans through a guided online system combining data entry tools, financial analysis, reporting functions and integrated assistance materials.
Application features allow users to prepare business plans covering investments, financing, production, operating costs and economic performance. Through simplified and analytical models, this platform can adapt to different business profiles and project types, helping users better understand the economic sustainability of proposed investments and development strategies.
Such a rural networking success story highlights how CAP technical assistance support for digital tools can strengthen entrepreneurial capacity, improve access to rural development opportunities and support more informed decision-making within rural areas. Enabling factors combine training, self-assessment and practical business management support in a user-friendly online environment.
Results
- BPOL provides an accessible and structured online environment enabling agrifood firms and others to prepare detailed business plans through guided digital processes. This platform simplified the preparation of financial and investment documentation while helping users better understand economic, patrimonial and cash-flow performance linked to their development projects.
- The application offers integrated support tools, including online guidance, downloadable materials, automatic checks and assistance functions that improve usability and reduce errors during business plan preparation. Through analytical and simplified planning models, users could adapt the system to different sectors, business dimensions and investment scenarios.
- Good practice results strengthen digital and financial skills among rural entrepreneurs while supporting more professional and evidence-based approaches to investment planning. By providing standardised yet flexible tools for business analysis and forecasting, BPOL also contributes to improving the quality and consistency of business plans connected to rural development investments and CAP-supported enterprise diversification initiatives
Promoter
National Rural Network
Funding
Total budget: 138 000 (EUR) (covering 2025 activities)
EAFRD: 71 760 (EUR)
National/Regional: 66 240 (EUR)
Topics
Resources
Context
Digitalisation is important in European rural development policy, as agrifood firms face growing pressure to improve competitiveness, sustainability and long-term resilience. At the same time, CAP support systems and investment measures are becoming more closely linked to wider EU priorities for environmental performance, resource efficiency, climate adaptation and the transition towards more sustainable farming systems.
Accessing these opportunities can be daunting for some because investment applications and business planning processes often require increasingly detailed economic, technical and financial justification.
Recent EU policy discussions, for instance, including work linked to the Fertiliser Action Plan and the CAP study on changing agricultural and farming systems, underline the importance of helping farmers adapt to evolving production models, input management requirements and diversification pathways. These transitions often require greater planning capacity, improved financial forecasting and clearer evaluation of long-term business sustainability.
Digital tools that simplify these processes can therefore play an important role in helping farmers prepare investment strategies aligned with emerging CAP priorities.
Within this efficiency and excellence context, a plan started to be designed to use CAP Technical Assistance funds for an accessible online business planning environment, helping CAP beneficiaries prepare structured investment and development plans. By improving understanding of costs, financing, production management and business performance, the digital ‘rural outreach’ toolkit could help users engage more confidently with CAP-supported modernisation and diversification opportunities.
This simplification project illustrates how CAP-supported digital innovation can strengthen entrepreneurial skills while making rural development tools more accessible, understandable and relevant for farmers navigating increasingly complex agricultural and environmental transitions.
Objectives
BPOL was developed as an online business planning application within Italy’s National Rural Network to support rural entrepreneurs and agricultural businesses in preparing structured business plans and financial analyses.
Activities
Implementing this set of good practice actions combined digital tools, guidance materials and integrated support functions within a single online platform designed to improve accessibility and ease of use for different types of users.
A first project phase focused on developing the digital application and creating a user registration and access system. Users could activate the BPOL service online, create company profiles and manage multiple business planning practices through dedicated digital workspaces called ‘Portafoglio Aziende’. The platform enabled users to open, duplicate, modify and archive business plan simulations according to different investment or development scenarios.
A key activity involved designing modular data-entry systems organised into several operational sections. These included areas dedicated to company assets, investment planning, financing structures, operational management and extraordinary management activities. Users could progressively complete information relating to revenues, production, labour costs, financing and balance sheets while monitoring the impact of data on business performance indicators.
The platform users can also integrate analytical and simplified planning models adapted to different business profiles and sectors. Analytical models enable detailed planning by product category and activity, while simplified models allow broader compartment-based analysis for users requiring less detailed input systems.
Training and support activities formed an essential part of the project. The application included integrated guidance systems, downloadable manuals, quick-help functions, frequently asked questions and technical support materials accessible through a dedicated assistance area. Users could also upload descriptive project reports and generate complete PDF business plans directly from the application.
Further main activity involved developing automatic control and validation functions capable of checking data completeness, financial balance and coherence of planning information before final confirmation of the business plan.
User actions generate economic, patrimonial and cash-flow indicators, allowing assessment of business sustainability and investment feasibility over time.
Project implementation also supports continuous self-learning by allowing users to review results dynamically during compilation phases, helping entrepreneurs better understand the financial consequences of different business decisions and investment strategies within rural development contexts.
Main results
- BPOL successfully created a structured and accessible online system supporting business planning, financial analysis and investment preparation for agrifood and rural enterprises. The platform enabled users to prepare detailed business plans through guided digital procedures integrating quantitative data, descriptive reports and financial forecasting tools.
- One of the project’s main achievements was the simplification of sophisticated planning processes through user-friendly interfaces and modular data-entry systems adapted to different business types and investment scenarios. The platform supported both analytical and simplified business planning approaches, allowing users with different levels of expertise to prepare coherent and structured financial plans.
- Its integrated assistance tools, manuals, downloadable materials and quick help functions improved accessibility and reduced barriers linked to technical and financial complexity.
- Automatic validation and control functions further strengthened the reliability of business plans by helping users identify inconsistencies and incomplete information before final submission.
- Results also improved users’ understanding of economic, patrimonial and cash-flow dynamics linked to investment and diversification projects. Through real-time result visualisation, users could analyse the impact of planning decisions on business performance indicators and financial sustainability.
- BPOL contributed more broadly to the digitalisation and professionalisation of localised economic management by encouraging evidence-based planning and more informed decision-making.
Key lessons
- This type of digital tool can significantly improve access to business planning and financial management support for rural entrepreneurs when platforms are designed around usability, flexibility and practical guidance.
- The project showed that many users require structured assistance not only for technical data entry, but also for understanding the wider economic implications of investment and diversification decisions.
- Another transferable lesson was the value of integrating training functions directly within operational digital applications. Manuals, quick-help systems, automatic checks and downloadable support materials helped increase confidence and reduce the complexity often associated with business planning processes.
- The initiative also highlighted the importance of adaptable planning models capable of responding to different sectors, business dimensions and levels of financial knowledge.
- By combining analytical and simplified approaches, the platform broadened accessibility for a wide range of users.
- CAP-supported digital innovation can strengthen entrepreneurial capacity and contribute to more resilient and professionally managed rural enterprises.