No matter how you call it – strategic plan, investment plan, expansion plan, operational plan, annual plan, internal plan, growth plan, product plan, feasibility plan, these are all business plans.
Business plans usually have a lot of standardized elements, like cash flow projections and marketing plans. Almost everyone shares certain objectives as well, such as raising money or persuading a partner to join the firm. It means business plans vary in their length, their appearance, the detail of their contents depending on what you intend to use your plan for and you business. For example, if you're developing a plan for internal use only, not for sending out to banks or investors, there is no necessity to include all the background details that you already know. Investors are more interested in description of the management team, while financial history is most important for banks.
Business plans can be divided roughly into several types. They require different amounts of labor and not always with proportionately different results.
There are:
1. A Start-up Plan. It is the most standard business plan, which defines the steps for a new business. It usually covers the following topics: the company, product or service, market, forecasts, strategy, management team, and financial analysis. The financial Plan is divided into projected sales, profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow projections. An executive summary is the first part, and the last one is appendices showing monthly projections for the first year.
2. An Operations Plan. It is an internal plan, used to operate your business. It should be long on detail but may be short on presentation. If your plan is intended strictly for internal use you may omit some elements, such as appendix with resumes of key executives or product photos. Besides this kind of business plans doesn't require such attention to details as other plans.
You don't have to be as careful about such things as paper, typos in the text, perfectly conforming to business style, being consistent with date formats and so on. This business plan may be designed in slides. First of all it should be convenient for usage.
3. A Presentation Plan. Creating such business plan you should place emphasis on its design as well as on its content. This plan is used for presentation to bankers, investors and others outside the company. The information in a presentation plan is going to be the same as in your working plan, the difference may be only in a style. Use only standard business vocabulary, omitting the informal jargon, slang and shorthand as these readers won't be familiar with your operation. A presentation business plan is an introduction.
You are also required to include some additional elements to your presentation plan. For example, investors are critically interested in information on all competitive threats and risks.
The main difference between the presentation and operations plans is in the details of appearance and polish. It doesn't matter how your operations plan looks like whereas a presentation plan should be printed by a high-quality printer, probably using color, on high-quality paper. It should include graphics such as charts, graphs, tables and illustrations.
4. A Miniplan. A miniplan length varies within one to 10 pages. Include in a miniplan cursory attention to such key matters as business concept, financing needs, marketing plan and financial statements, especially cash flow, income projection and balance sheet. The main purpose of this kind of business plans is to quickly test a business concept or measure the interest of a potential partner or minor investor. Don't confuse a miniplan with a full-length plan, presenting it to an investor who's looking for a comprehensive one.
5. An Electronic Plan. Still the majority of business plans are composed on a computer then printed out and presented in hard copy. But little by little electronic way of transferring information becomes more popular. So it may be useful to have an electronic version of your plan available. An electronic plan can be handy for presentations to a group using a computer-driven overhead projector, for example, or for satisfying the demands of a discriminating investor who wants to be able to delve deeply into the underpinnings of complex spreadsheets. | 
