A 13 week cashflow forecast, also known as a "direct cashflow forecast", allows you to see your inflows and outflows at a detailed line item level for the 13 weeks ahead.

As such, this method allows you to predict your closing cash position 13 weeks into the future and have detailed visibility of which receipts and payments are driving this outcome.

Most businesses do not have a direct 13 week cashflow forecast.

Most businesses prepare their cashflow statements using the "indirect" method. In the same way a business prepares a historical cashflow statement using their P&L and Balance Sheet to determine their cashflows, they will also use this same method to determine their cashflows in the future using their P&L and Balance Sheet budget/forecast.

However, cashflow forecasts prepared under the indirect method lack the granularity needed to drive the business. Whilst it's helpful to have a high level view of future cashflows under this method, there is no visibility of the individual receipts & payments driving these future cashflows. Furthermore, these estimates are made off the back of the P&L and Balance Sheet rather than detailed ERP data and latest company forecasts, therefore reducing accuracy.

A 13 week cashflow forecast can benefit all businesses of all sizes.

Typically, these types of forecasts are prepared by businesses and their advisors during time of stress / distress to help build visibility of the company's remaining liquidity runway. By using the forecast, the business can then drive short-term cash improvement measures. Furthermore, this forecast is used by the company / advisors / lenders / investors to make decisions about how to deal with the company's liquidity situation.

However, even profitable businesses can need this type of forecast. We have worked with company's that have healthy profitability margins on an annual basis, however, due to seasonality they suffer from a consistent liquidity pinch-point which requires detailed visibility of short-term cashflows during this period to ensure no additional financing is required.

Furthermore, healthy and cash generating businesses can also benefit from short-term cash forecasting to help manage their surplus cash. Whether it's a dividend payment or new investment, it's helpful to see what your short-term cashflows are going to look like before spending a large amount of money that might cause liquidity issues later on.

Our service is targeted at FP&A / Finance managers and Treasury managers who will be responsible for running their cashflow forecast on a recurring basis. We're here to help companies improve their cashflow forecasting so they have the best visibility of their short-term liquidity.

Whilst there are other training resources available online, these are focused on investment/banking professionals in the context of building a one-off forecast for the purposes of investment/lending/restructuring decisions.

There are 13 week cashflow forecasting software solutions in the market. And they may be the right answer for your business.

However, from our experience, these can be costly and time consuming to implement. Furthermore, we don't believe there's a 'one-size-fits-all' solution to 13 week cashflow forecasting. We believe that every business will need to tailor their forecast to fit their unique circumstances.

As such, we think the best place to start is with something simple. Investing in our services provides a cost-effective method to gain the skills & knowledge to build a forecast for your business. Once you're up & running, you can then make an informed decision about whether the next step for your business is to invest in a third-party software solution.

No.

You'll see 'standardised' templates online. Even we've built one for you under our CashflowFree offering. However, these will only get you so far.

From our experience, the best 13 week cashflow forecast template is: the one you build for your own business.

Every business is different. We've worked with businesses and built a cashflow forecast for them and can guarantee that if the direct competitor also wanted one, it would turn out quite different.

Common reasons you need a tailored forecast:

- Not all company's operate on credit: 'unwinding your AR and AP ledger' is commonly advised when building a cashflow forecast. But what if you're a retail company that doesn't operate on credit with your customers? Then you're going to need a different solution.

- Not all companies are structured the same: some businesses will only operate in one country, with one main entity, under one currency. Others will be be international and have business units in multiple different countries with different FX rates. Each situation requires a different solution.

- Data availability varies: some companies have high quality system data and regularly updated management forecasts, all of which can be easily aggregated and transformed into a largely automated forecast. Other businesses will have messier data, multiple different ERP systems and less clarity on who is responsible for providing forecasting inputs. This may require building more structure around data gathering and require more manual inputs. All of this creates differences in your forecasting workbook and process.

- The forecasting process: you may want to build and refresh your forecast centrally. Otherwise, you may want to take a decentralised approach where you share templates with all your various business unit finance managers and then consolidated the inputs. Both approaches require different structures of workbooks and processes.

Why not book a free consultation meeting with us? The only cost is your time. We can get to understand your business's needs and see if we're the right people to help you.

You can also access our CashflowFree materials to get you started.

All the content is absolutely free and all you have to do is sign up.

We're offering a free 13 week cashflow forecast workbook, training video that takes you through the workbook, and a PDF user guide.

If you like what you see, and realise you need something more advanced, then you can consider purchasing our CashflowPlus+ or CashflowPro service.

Our one-to-one consultation services are done online in order to service our customer base.

Yes! Our workbooks are all built in Microsoft Excel and our training videos show you how to build these forecasts using this software.

Similar results can be achieved on other software platforms using Google Sheets and Apple Numbers but you may face certain limitations based on the capabilities of these software packages.