Small Business Cash Flow Forecast Template
Thirteen weeks built from the dates your customers actually paid, with a priced options list attached to the week the balance goes under your floor.
Free download · No account needed
Weekly Cash Forecast
[Company] — thirteen weeks from [Monday]
One column a week. Every inflow sits on the date a deposit is expected to clear, which is the invoice date plus that customer’s measured days, and never the terms written on the contract.
| Line | Basis | Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | … | Wk 13 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening balance | Bank | — | — | — | … | — |
| Collections, measured deposit dates | Measured | — | — | — | … | — |
| Payroll | Every other Friday | — | — | … | ||
| Supplies and consumables | Weekly | — | — | — | … | — |
| Rent, finance, subcontract, draw | Monthly, by day | — | — | … | — | |
| Insurance, tax filings, licences | Quarterly | — | … | |||
| Committed and ordered, not yet paid | By date | — | … | |||
| Closing balance, measured | — | — | — | — | … | — |
| Closing balance, on the written terms | Control | — | — | — | … | — |
| Cash floor | You set it | — | — | — | … | — |
| Headroom over the floor | — | — | — | — | … | — |
Two rows here do not appear on any cash forecast you can download. The terms row is the control, so the difference between the two readings is visible rather than argued about. And every week that closes under the floor points at the Action Options sheet, where each response carries the lead time it needs and the date after which it is no longer available.
Every free cash flow forecast template for a small business is the same artifact: a grid with a collections row you fill in yourself. Twelve monthly columns or thirteen weekly ones, twenty-two pre-built outflow categories on the better ones, an auto-calculated lowest ending balance. All of them take the arrival dates from whoever is typing, and a person typing a collections row reads the terms off the contract, because that is the only date written down anywhere. The grid is then only as good as that guess.
Fenmark Commercial Cleaning is an invented forty-one contract janitorial business: $163,000 invoiced a month, thirty day terms on every contract. Eighteen months of bank credits matched to the invoices they settled say the book pays in 46.9 days. Four contracts run at 57 to 71 days and they are 41.5 percent of the invoicing, so they set the weighted figure almost on their own. At $5,359 of invoicing a day, that 16.9 day slip is $90,506 of cash a terms-based forecast books before it exists.
So the same thirteen weeks, same costs and same invoices, bottom out at $79,230 on the terms and $11,530 on the deposits, against a $40,000 floor. Half of employer firms report uneven cash flow as a financial challenge in the Fed's 2025 credit survey, and the grid most of them download cannot see it. This one ships with the responses attached, priced, and dated by the lead time each one needs.
What's in the pack
Weekly Cash Forecast sheet
Thirteen weekly columns, fourteen cost lines on their real dates, and two closing balance rows: one on measured deposit dates and one on the written terms as the control. The cash floor sits under both.
Collection Timing by Customer sheet
Per customer: invoices matched, median, mean, p90, the written terms and the slip between them. The invoice count is a column, so a mean off three observations is visible as the guess it is.
Action Options sheet
Eight responses with what each releases, its lead time, its cash cost, that cost annualised, and two decide-by dates: one for the base case and one for the downside. Payroll is on it as a row that says never.
Scenario View sheet
Three readings of the same weeks. The terms as the control, the measured mean as the base case, and every account at its own p90. One variable moves, and the deadline goes from 77 days to 21.
Receivables and Payables Timing sheet
Every open invoice with its age, its bucket, and the week its deposit is expected, including the ones that land after week thirteen. Then every committed outflow with the weeks it lands in.
Action Options if the Forecast Turns Negative
The reasoning behind each row and the trap in it. Restocking fees, late fee clauses, and why a draw funding a mortgage payment is not free. Whether a line of work earns the money is a separate question.
How the Days to Pay Were Measured
Matching credits to invoices, allocating a payment that covers several, dating a part payment, and what to do with a customer whose behaviour changed halfway through the history.
Assumptions in Plain Language
Which figures are measurements and which are genuinely assumptions, each in a sentence you can argue with. What a deposit is not yours to spend is excluded here too.
The Weekly Roll Forward and eight prompts
Fifteen minutes on Monday, thirty on the first Monday of the month, four written thresholds, and a prompt per step. Where the rest of an owner's week goes is its own audit.
How it works
- 1
Take the files or install the pack
Five blank sheets and five documents as CSV and Word files with no account, or install the whole thing into a private Space with the agent already primed on the measurement.
- 2
Send the transaction history
Eighteen months of bank rows if they exist, twelve if not, plus the open invoices. The collection dates are in the deposits and they are in nothing else you have.
- 3
Get the timing, then the grid
Days to pay per customer against what each contract says, then the thirteen weeks on those dates with the payroll calendar laid on it rather than a monthly average.
- 4
Set your floor and read the options
The week it breaks, the shortfall, what landed in it, and eight priced responses with the date each one stops being available. Free ones first, financing last.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Five sheets, five documents and eight prompts with no signup and no card, and they are the same files the agent works in. Editing with AI is the optional path, where your own bank history becomes the collection timing and the grid gets built on it.
What format are the downloaded files?
CSV for the Weekly Cash Forecast, Collection Timing, Action Options, the Scenario View and the timing sheet, and Word for the five documents, zipped together. Excel, Numbers, Sheets, Word and Pages open them directly with nothing to install.
Why not just use the payment terms?
Because the terms are what somebody agreed to once and the deposits are what happened. On the worked example the terms say thirty days and the book pays in 46.9, and that gap is the difference between a forecast showing a $79,230 low point and one showing $11,530.
What if I have no payment history for a customer?
Use the median of the closest comparable accounts already on your book, name which accounts those were, and flag the row as an assumption. Fenmark's new site is forecast at 65 days off three comparable properties paying at 41, 65 and 71, and that flag carries $34,000.
Why thirteen weeks rather than twelve months?
Because payroll is biweekly on most small businesses, and California's labour commissioner requires a biweekly period to be paid within seven days of it ending. A monthly column cannot represent a month with three runs, and two months a year have one.
Can I defer payroll or a tax deposit if a week looks short?
No, and neither appears on the options list for that reason. Wages are due on a fixed statutory interval, and withheld employment taxes are deposited on a monthly or semiweekly schedule you are told before the calendar year begins. Which deadline carries which amount is a separate space, and nothing here is tax advice.
Does this replace my bookkeeper or my accountant?
No. It reads what the bookkeeping already produced and adds the one thing no ledger carries, which is when each customer's money has historically landed. It assumes the bank accounts feeding it are already separated, which the banking setup pack covers if not. What the terms and the late fee say in the first place belongs in the agreement.
Find out which week breaks, while you still have free options
Download the blank pack as Word and CSV files, or open it in River, send your bank history, and get days to pay per customer back first.
Edit with AI