Worked research guide · Sources and examples checked 17 October 2026 · AllMarkets Trading
A 13-week forecast is most useful when it shows when cash might become unavailable, rather than only a positive ending balance. Start with reconciled opening cash, enter expected receipt and payment dates, then inspect opening and daily closing balances. A week-end total can hide an earlier payroll gap.
The cash-flow software catalogue compares short-term, manual and integrated workflows. Its local 13-week planner provides a separate dated sensitivity exercise. It does not connect to a bank, infer omitted obligations or predict which customers will pay.
Define the opening balance before adding events
Record the balance available immediately before the first modelled day and state which accounts belong in that amount. Restricted funds, overdraft limits and cash in another legal entity can require separate treatment. The planner accepts a signed opening amount, but a negative result does not establish an approved credit facility.
Use bookkeeping records to reconcile actual transactions. An invoice date is not necessarily its expected collection date, and a sales forecast is not immediately a cash receipt. If actuals and projected invoices overlap, a forecast can double count the same money.
Reproduce a three-day timing example
Use invented opening cash of 1000. Enter a receipt of 600 on the first day and a payment of 1400 on the second. With no other events, baseline day-one closing cash is 1600; day-two closing cash is 200. The ending amount is positive, and there is no negative opening or daily close in that baseline.
Now delay the receipt by two days without changing its amount. Day one closes at 1000. Day two closes at −400 after the payment. Day three closes at 200 when the receipt arrives. The final balance is the same 200, but the path contains a 400 funding gap. A weekly view that only showed the eventual closing amount would omit that timing problem.
| Day | Baseline close | Receipt delayed two days |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1600 | 1000 |
| 2 | 200 | −400 |
| 3 | 200 | 200 |
Check the beginning as well as the closes
An opening amount of −100 with a 200 receipt on the first day produces a positive 100 daily close. It still begins with negative cash. Our planner deliberately includes opening cash in minimum and breach checks and labels that basis. It does not resolve intraday order: a receipt and a payment on the same date are netted for the daily calculation.
Minimum-buffer alerts use a user-defined threshold and a strict less-than comparison. A balance equal to the buffer is not below it. Choose the threshold deliberately and interpret it as an internal planning assumption rather than a regulatory or solvency conclusion.
Keep baseline events and scenario overrides distinct
The local planner retains original events even when an adjusted date falls outside the 91-day horizon. Each scenario reports its own excluded events. If a delayed receipt leaves the final week, do not silently delete it from the source or pretend it arrived inside the selected period.
Keep the baseline JSON and export a separate copy of the scenario report. Where only one customer is late, editing that event in a copied forecast can be more informative than delaying every receipt. A uniform receipt multiplier or delay is a coarse sensitivity test, not a probability estimate.
Connect the result to the working records
Use business financial templates when an editable workbook is the appropriate primary record. A linked profit-and-loss, balance-sheet and cash-flow model is a different scope from a direct list of dated cash events. Keep the definitions visible when reconciling them.
Before relying on a report, check opening cash, expected dates, duplicate actuals, excluded events and a known payment. Preserve the raw source and test restoration. A realistic-looking forecast can still omit tax, debt, capital purchases or other obligations that were never entered.