A rolling 13-week cash forecast can give leadership a practical view of near-term liquidity. To make it useful, build it around expected receipts and payments, explain the assumptions and update it through a consistent weekly process. A spreadsheet becomes a management tool when it changes the timing or quality of a decision.
The approach below is a working method for growing businesses. Adjust the level of detail to the volatility of your cash flows and the decisions you need to make.
1. Begin with cash that is available to use
Start from reconciled bank balances at a defined cut-off. Identify restricted balances separately. Keep entity and currency detail where it affects access to funds, and show planned intercompany transfers explicitly. A consolidated total should not conceal a shortfall in the entity responsible for a payment.
For each week, show opening cash, receipts, payments and closing cash. Keep borrowing facilities and potential funding visible in separate lines, with the assumptions governing availability. Avoid presenting funding still under discussion as an unconditional receipt.
2. Put cash flows in the weeks they are expected to settle
Build receipts from the receivables ledger, customer payment behaviour and specific collection information. Separate issued invoices from expected future sales. For significant items, record the expected receipt date, the basis for that date and the person responsible for following it up.
Build payments from supplier commitments, payroll, tax dates, leases, financing obligations and approved expenditure. Include known commitments that have not yet reached accounts payable. Keep discretionary plans visible so leadership can understand where timing remains a choice. Avoid counting the same payment through both an invoice schedule and a general expenditure estimate.
3. Separate the expected case from the downside
Maintain a base case reflecting your best current assessment. Then model a small number of meaningful changes: a major customer paying late, weaker collections, an earlier supplier payment or a recruitment commitment proceeding ahead of revenue.
Define a minimum operating cash level appropriate to your obligations and risk tolerance. Show the weeks that approach or breach it. The objective is to identify the decision window: when an action must be taken, who controls it and how much difference it makes. A broad percentage reduction across every receipt is often less useful than a specific, explainable scenario.
Worked example / EUR / Illustrative data
The cash low point changes the decision window.
Start with €42,000 of available cash and a €15,000 operating minimum. The first three weeks of the downloadable template look like this:
| Base case, EUR | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening cash | 42,000 | 35,000 | 40,000 |
| Customer collections | 20,000 | 28,000 | 18,000 |
| Payments | 27,000 | 23,000 | 36,000 |
| Closing cash | 35,000 | 40,000 | 22,000 |
The base case ends week three with €22,000. Change collections to €14,000, €22,000 and €14,000 in the downside case, keeping payments unchanged. Week-three closing cash falls to €6,000: €9,000 below the operating minimum.
That exposes a decision before the shortfall arrives. Review collection actions, the timing of discretionary commitments and any available funding. In the example, week-three payments include €8,000 of capital expenditure. Even deferring it would leave €14,000 in the downside case, still €1,000 below the minimum. One action does not necessarily close the whole gap.
This example uses synthetic data. It illustrates the model’s logic and does not forecast a real business.
Editable Excel download
Your 13-week cash forecast.
Includes base and downside collections, editable receipts and payments, a minimum-cash warning, and an actuals comparison that distinguishes a missing figure from zero.
4. Reconcile the forecast to what actually happened
Each week, replace the completed period with actual receipts and payments, compare them with the previous forecast and add a new week at the end. Keep the earlier version so the team can explain changes.
Separate timing differences from permanent changes. An expected receipt that has not arrived should move to a revised date supported by current collection information; a lost sale needs a different treatment. Use recurring variances to improve assumptions and collection routines rather than repeatedly carrying forward an unsupported date.
5. Bring the forecast into the weekly CFO review
Present the minimum cash point, material movements since last week, the principal uncertainties and the actions proposed. Link each action to a person and a date. Where a longer-term commitment is under consideration, connect this short-term view to the wider budget and financial model.
Automate data collection and scheduled updates where possible, while retaining finance review of assumptions and exceptions. Our fractional CFO and finance department service brings forecasting into the full weekly finance review. Explore the operating approach behind that reporting.
Founder & CEO, BriQs Group. More than ten years at Big Four accounting firms, followed by building BriQs’ finance methodology for startups and SMEs.
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