Can You Make Payroll on the 15th? The 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast Answers That Every Monday.
Every business owner asks the same question on Monday morning, usually while looking at the online banking app: can I make payroll on the 15th, and what happens if the big customer pays late?
Most owners answer it by feel. The ones who sleep well answer it with a report. It’s called a 13-week cash flow forecast, and it’s the first thing our advisory clients get from us, because it’s the one that changes how they run the week.
What it is
A grid, thirteen weeks wide. It starts with your actual bank balance today, then walks forward one week at a time: money coming in, money going out, ending balance. Thirteen weeks is one quarter, far enough ahead to see a crunch coming and close enough that the numbers are real.
It is not a budget. A budget is what you hope happens this year. The forecast is what will happen to the bank account in the next ninety days based on what’s already in motion: the invoices you’ve sent and when those customers actually pay, the bills you owe, payroll dates, the loan payment, the tax estimate on the 15th, what you take out for yourself.
What goes in it
- Opening balance: your reconciled book balance, not the number in the banking app. The app doesn’t know about the three checks that haven’t cleared.
- Cash in: each open invoice on the day that customer actually pays, not the due date. The customer who always pays at 47 days goes in at 47 days. Recurring revenue you haven’t invoiced yet. Nothing you’re hoping to sell.
- Cash out, fixed: payroll and payroll taxes on their dates, rent, loan payments, insurance, software, your draw.
- Cash out, variable: every open bill by due date, plus what normally hits the credit card each week.
- The one-offs you forgot: the quarterly tax estimate, the annual insurance premium, the equipment deposit, the balloon payment. This is where the forecast pays for itself the first time you run it.
- A red line: the minimum balance you never want to go below, usually one payroll. Any week that dips under it lights up.
What it catches
In our clients’ first forecasts, the same things show up over and over:
- A week in month two where three big outflows land together and the balance goes negative for four days. Nobody knew, because each one alone was fine.
- A customer whose “net 30” is really net 55, which means the owner has been financing them with the line of credit without realizing it.
- A tax estimate the owner had mentally paid but hadn’t.
- An owner’s draw that was sized for last year’s business.
None of that shows up on a profit and loss statement. A business can be profitable on paper and miss payroll. The forecast is the report that sees it coming.
What a CFO does with it
This is where the report turns into advice. The forecast is wrong the day after it’s printed, because a customer paid early or a bill showed up. So it gets rolled every Monday and reviewed every Tuesday in fifteen minutes. That call is the CFO work:
- “If Miller pays late again, we skip the truck purchase this month. If they pay on time, we prepay the line.”
- “You’re under the red line in week seven. Do we push the vendor, pull in the two slow invoices, or draw on the line for ten days?”
- “You’ve got room in week eleven. That’s when we make the estimated payment, not week nine.”
- “Your draw is what’s causing the dip. Here’s what the business can actually support this quarter.”
Those are small decisions. Made every week for a year, they’re the difference between a business that’s always a little scared and one that isn’t.
What it takes
Honest prerequisite: the forecast is only as good as the books under it. If the bank isn’t reconciled weekly and the invoices and bills aren’t current, the forecast is a guess with a grid around it. That’s why we build it on top of monthly close, not instead of it.
Where we come in
The 13-week forecast is the first deliverable in our Business Advisory tier: we build it from your closed books, roll it every Monday, and walk through it with you every Tuesday. It sits on top of the monthly bookkeeping we already do, so there’s no separate spreadsheet to feed. If you’ve ever looked at the banking app on a Monday and felt your stomach drop, reach out. We’ll build the first one and show you what’s in week seven.
