Thirteen weeks is long enough to expose upcoming pressure and short enough to forecast with operational detail. The model should answer one question clearly: what is expected to enter and leave the bank each week?
Start with the beginning bank balance
Use available operating cash, not total account balances if some money is restricted, reserved for taxes, or otherwise unavailable.
Forecast receipts by expected collection date
Do not simply divide monthly revenue by four. Build expected receipts from open invoices, payment terms, recurring customers, signed work, and realistic collection behavior.
Forecast disbursements by payment week
Capture payroll, payroll taxes, vendor payments, rent, debt service, insurance, equipment, owner draws, tax payments, and nonrecurring commitments.
Calculate the ending balance and minimum cushion
Each week’s ending cash becomes the next week’s beginning cash. Compare the projected balance with a management-defined minimum—not merely zero.
Build three layers of accountability
- Source: Every meaningful number should trace to an invoice, schedule, contract, payroll estimate, or named assumption.
- Owner: Someone should own collections, purchasing, payroll inputs, and forecast updates.
- Variance: Compare forecast to actual each week. Repeated misses reveal process problems.
What the forecast should trigger
- Accelerated collections
- Vendor-term discussions
- Delayed discretionary spending
- Hiring or equipment timing changes
- Credit-line planning before liquidity becomes urgent
- Scenario planning around large contracts or customer concentration
Do not make it too complicated
The best first model may have 15–25 meaningful lines, not 200. Detail should be added when it improves a decision. Complexity that nobody updates is worse than a simple model used every Friday.
Build a simple first scenario now.
The interactive planner estimates 13 weeks of cash using beginning cash, expected receipts, and weekly outflows.
Open the planner