13-Week Cash-Flow Forecast Template (Excel) — Free

The sheet itself

• Thirteen weekly columns, rolling
• Payroll on its real weeks rather than smoothed
• Supplier runs separated from the rest of the outgoings
• Opening and closing balance per week, both formulas

How to use it

1. 1

   Start on Monday and keep it rolling

   Week 1 is the week you are in. Every Monday you drop the week just gone and add a new week 13 at the end, so the horizon never shortens.

2. 2

   Enter receipts by customer, on the week they pay

   For a thirteen-week view, guessing is not good enough. Take your open invoices, their terms, and what that customer usually does — the same invoice can belong three weeks apart depending on who owes it.

3. 3

   Put payroll and tax on their exact weeks

   These are the two payments that decide whether a week works. They are known to the day, so they belong in one column, at full size, not averaged across four.

4. 4

   Watch the lowest closing balance, not the last one

   Week 13 rarely matters. The week the balance is lowest is the one you have to act on, and it is usually the week after payroll and before a large receipt.

A worked example

The mistakes that break it

• Dividing the month by four

  Rent, payroll and insurance are not weekly. A quarter of each in every column produces a smooth line that is wrong in all thirteen weeks.

• Trusting the payment terms on the invoice

  Terms are what you asked for. Use what that customer actually did last time — for most B2B businesses that is one to three weeks later.

• Never rolling it forward

  A 13-week plan that is six weeks old is a seven-week plan. If it is not refreshed on a fixed weekday, it stops being the thing you decide on.

Where the template stops

What comes after the spreadsheet