Cash flow forecasting
Stop finding out about a cash problem the week it lands.
A 13-week rolling forecast built from how your business actually collects and pays, so payroll stops being a question you answer on Thursday night.
The problem
Profitable on paper, tight in the account.
Profit and cash are not the same thing, and the distance between them is where most owner-operated businesses get hurt. You do the work in March, bill it in April, and collect in June. Meanwhile payroll runs every two weeks and the material invoice is due in thirty days.
Growth makes it worse, not better. A bigger job consumes more cash up front and pays later, so the fastest-growing month is often the tightest one. Without a forecast, you find out when the balance is already low and your options have narrowed to a credit line draw or a hard conversation with a vendor.
Why it matters
Every option you have gets cheaper with more notice.
Six weeks of warning means you can accelerate a collection, delay a purchase, or call your banker while you still look like a business making a plan. Six days of warning means you take whatever money is available at whatever it costs.
The forecast is not about predicting the future precisely. It is about seeing the shape of the next quarter early enough that the decision is still yours.
What gets built
- A 13-week rolling forecast of cash in and cash out, by week
- Collections modeled on your actual customer payment behavior, not invoice terms
- Payroll, debt service, taxes, and recurring obligations mapped to their real timing
- Scenario views for a slow-paying customer, a delayed job, or a large purchase
- A weekly minimum cash threshold and an alert when the forecast crosses it
- Variance review, so the forecast gets more accurate each cycle
Who this is for
- Businesses with a gap between doing the work and getting paid for it
- Project-based, seasonal, or contract businesses with uneven revenue
- Owners who have drawn on a credit line for working capital more than once
- Companies growing fast enough that growth itself is the cash pressure
What you should expect to gain
- Knowing your cash position weeks out instead of days out
- A defensible answer when a lender asks how you manage working capital
- The ability to say yes to a larger job because you can see whether you can fund it
Common questions
Before you book.
How far out does the forecast go?
Thirteen weeks, rolling. That is far enough to see a problem while you can still do something about it, and close enough that the numbers stay believable. Longer-range planning happens separately, on an annual cycle.
Isn't this what my accounting software does?
Accounting software reports what already happened. A forecast projects what is coming, week by week, based on your actual collection patterns, your payables, your payroll cycle, and your debt service. Most software will not do that without someone building it.
What if my revenue is lumpy or seasonal?
Lumpy revenue is the reason to forecast, not a reason to skip it. Construction, manufacturing, and project-based businesses are exactly where a rolling forecast earns its keep, because the gap between billing and collection is where the pressure builds.
Who maintains it?
I do, as part of an ongoing engagement, and you get it updated on a set cadence. It is built in a format your team can run if you ever want to take it in house.
Next step
See where your cash actually goes.
Start with a short conversation. If a forecast is not the first thing you need, I will say so.