How to build a 13-week cash flow forecast, with the template
By Chris Greco, Founder and President.
A 13-week cash forecast is a weekly table with nine rows: beginning cash, collections, payroll, vendors, debt service, taxes and distributions, capital purchases, ending cash and line availability. The rows are easy. The discipline is reconciling it to actual cash every week.
Collections come from the receivables aging by customer and how each one actually pays, not the terms on the invoice. Payables come from the aging by due date. Payroll is by cycle. Debt, taxes, distributions and equipment come from a calendar. Write the assumptions in the margin so someone can argue with them.
Every Monday, replace last week's forecast with what happened and read the variance by line. Collections short by $40k tells you which customer slipped. That variance is the whole point: it teaches you your business one week at a time. The template is on the Tools page.
Chris Greco
Founder and President, CFO Anywhere. CFO for owner-led companies since 2002. Executive MBA, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois.
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