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In a time of change for your business it makes sense to take stock of your position and make sure you have enough to see through the next 12 weeks.

We’ve got a nice simple 12 week cash flow forecast template for you to use to get to grips with your cash position.

Simple-Cash-Flow-Forecast 12 weeks

For many people cash flow forecasting is a bit of a scary unknown, but it doesn’t have to be. For short periods just keep it simple which is what our template does.
Here’s the steps you want to go through to get the spreadsheet ready for you:
  1. Cell B5 add todays date, then in the following cells on row 5 enter the week commencing date for the following weeks e.g. w/c 30/03/20, w/c 06/04/20 etc.
  2.  
  3. In cell B60 you want to enter your cash balance as it is right now
  4.  
  5. In the remaining column B you just want to enter what you believe you will receive and pay out for the rest of this week for each of the type of receipts and type of payments. For some of these, you won’t be certain, after all you can’t guarantee when a customer will pay you but you can give it a best guess, and that is what is important here
  6.  
  7. Then in cell B62 you have the closing cash balance, and your opening cash balance for next week in cell C60.
  8.  
  9. Follow this process through for the next 12 weeks and you’ll have an estimated cash position for your business, to check you have what you need to see you through this rocky time.

Yes it is a guess, and we don’t know what will happen, but equally it is absolutely vital you take charge of the cash position in your business to make sure you are covered for what might be. As you go along each week you can update each week for what actually happened and add an extra week on to the end, doing this will help you get better at estimating what your business ins and outs are, a valuable skill for any business owner.

If you want you can even set-up multiple scenarios for different eventualities so you can model out different eventualities and what they can mean for your business, so if it looks like they might happen you are well prepared.

If you forsee a problem in the future with your cash then now is the time to consider the Coronavirus Business Interruption Scheme, in which case you want to start by speaking to your bank and us about what your options are.

If you want any help with the 12 week cash flow forecast, or need some assistance with a more sophisticated cash flow forecasting template, then please get in touch. You could even use the template to help with your own home finances.

Thomas

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