Cash-flow forecast for your Shopify store

If you run a Shopify store, your bank balance can swing hard from month to month: a big inventory order goes out, ad spend ramps, a payout lands a few days late. A cash-flow forecast is just a simple picture of what your balance will look like over the next few months — so nothing catches you off guard. You can build one in a spreadsheet in an afternoon. Here are the five steps.

Prefer to follow along with the finished sheet? Grab the free cash-flow forecast template for Shopify & WooCommerce — every formula in this guide is already wired up.

The four numbers everything else is built on

Before the grid, the inputs. You do not need a dashboard full of metrics to forecast a Shopify store — you need four numbers. Get these right and the forecast is roughly right; get them wrong and no amount of spreadsheet polish will save it. Here is what each one does to your cash, and exactly where to read it in Shopify.

1. Orders per month

The engine. Everything downstream — revenue, restocking, shipping, fees — scales with how many orders you ship. Track it monthly so you can see seasonality and the effect of promos.

In Shopify: Analytics → Reports → Sales over time (or the "Orders" metric on your Analytics overview). Read the last few complete months.

2. Average order value (AOV)

What each order is worth. Multiply it by orders and you have revenue. Small AOV moves — a bundle, free-shipping threshold, an upsell — flow straight to the top line without needing a single extra visitor.

In Shopify: Analytics → Reports → Average order value. If you can't see it directly, divide total sales by order count for the period.

3. Contribution margin per order

The number founders skip — and the one that decides whether growth helps or hurts. It's what's left from an order after the costs that scale with it: AOV − product cost − shipping − payment fee. If it's positive, every order funds the business; if it's thin, scaling ads just burns cash faster.

In Shopify: pull product cost from your cost per item field (Products → a product → Cost per item; the Profit reports use it), shipping from your carrier/Shopify Shipping, and fees at ~2–3%. Do the subtraction once per typical order.

4. Refund & return rate

The quiet leak. A 10% return rate doesn't just cut revenue 10% — you often eat the shipping both ways and can't resell the item. Model it as a haircut on revenue: orders × AOV × (1 − refund rate).

In Shopify: Analytics → Reports → Returns (or "Refunds") over time, as a share of sales.

Step 1 — Lay out your months

Open a spreadsheet. Put the next 12 months across the top row, and leave the left column for labels. Every number you enter lives under the month it actually happens in. That is the whole grid — revenue rows near the top, cost rows below, and a few summary rows at the bottom.

Step 2 — Forecast your revenue (two ways)

This is the step that matters most, and you have two honest options. Pick the one that fits how much detail you want.

Both are legitimate. Start with Option A to get a plan on the page today, and move to Option B when you want to test decisions. You can find all three inputs in Shopify Analytics — orders, average order value, and returns — which is what the four numbers above walk through.

Step 3 — Add your costs

List your costs as separate rows so you can see what moves with sales and what does not:

Notice the first three scale with orders, while the last row stays flat. Keeping them apart makes the next step honest. Each of these lines has its own short deep-dive — follow the links above for the exact formula behind restocking, shipping and payment fees, ad budget and fixed costs.

Step 4 — Net cash flow and cash balance

Add a Net cash flow row (revenue minus all costs, per month). Then add a Cash at end of month row: start with what is in the bank today, and each month add that month's net. This bottom row is the one that matters — it shows the exact month your balance dips, and whether a big restock would take you under.

Step 5 — Keep it current (and add a downside)

A forecast is only useful if it stays fresh. Put a 20-minute reminder on the 1st of each month: drop in last month's real Shopify numbers, adjust the months ahead, re-read your ending cash. Each month you replace the oldest projection with what actually happened and extend one month further out.

Here's the exact same five-step forecast living in Foreqast — the category rows and their drivers, with Shopify and Meta feeding the numbers automatically: