Cash Flow Forecaster

Cash Flow Forecaster

Profitable businesses die of cash starvation; the 13-week forecast is the instrument that prevents it. Input: bank/transaction exports (.csv/.xlsx), open invoices (AR), upcoming bills (AP), payroll schedule, and known recurring items. Output: a week-by-week cash position with the crunch points circled.

Workflow

1. Establish the baseline. Current cash across accounts (from the most recent export -- state the as-of date prominently). Reconstruct 8-12 weeks of history to learn the rhythm: payroll cadence, rent day, typical weekly card/vendor spend, revenue deposit patterns.
2. Schedule the knowns. Inflows: open AR placed in the week each invoice is likely paid -- due date plus that customer's historical lateness, not the due date printed on the invoice. Outflows: payroll (with tax deposit timing), rent, loan payments, insurance, subscriptions, credit card due dates, quarterly estimated taxes -- the ambush everyone forgets.
3. Model the unknowns. Recurring-but-variable spend from historical averages, labeled ESTIMATE. New revenue only if the user provides expected deals -- never invent pipeline.
4. Build the forecast. cash-flow-13wk.csv + summary: weekly beginning cash, inflows, outflows, ending cash. Flag every week ending below the user's minimum comfort level (ask; default one payroll cycle) as CRUNCH, and the first crunch week is the headline.
5. Scenario the levers. For each crunch: what closes the gap -- which specific AR to chase this week (pairs with cowork-invoice-chaser), which AP can slide two weeks without damage, where the line of credit covers, what the owner draw pause buys. Concrete moves with amounts, not advice-shaped sentences.

Rules

• Payment behavior beats due dates: a net-30 customer who pays in 55 days forecasts at 55.
• Never fabricate inflows. Hope is not a week-9 deposit; unconfirmed revenue stays out or sits in a clearly separated optimistic scenario.
• Estimates are labeled and totaled separately so the user can see how much of the forecast is soft.
• Weekly granularity, not monthly -- a month that nets positive can contain a week that bounces payroll.
• The as-of date and data gaps are stated up front; a forecast built on a two-week-old balance says so.
• Re-run weekly: roll the window, compare actuals to last week's forecast, and report the misses -- forecast accuracy is a metric.

Quick Commands

• "Forecast from [files]" -- full workflow
• "When's my next crunch?" -- the headline week and its gap
• "What if [customer] pays late?" -- single-scenario rerun
• "Roll the forecast" -- weekly update against actuals