The Cash Buffer: Survival-Weeks Calculator & Build Plan

The sample shop holds $18,500 of reachable cash against $17,600 a month of fixed obligations — rent, the payroll you'd keep paying, the loans, and the draw your household actually requires. That's 4.6 weeks. Collectible receivables stretch it to 5.8. The credit line takes it to 8.3 — but borrowing during a stoppage is a loan, not a buffer, and this workbook keeps that distinction visible instead of comforting.

How it works

• The Buffer — reachable cash, receivables with an honest collection haircut, credit counted separately → survival weeks three ways and a plain verdict against the 4 / 8 / 13-week benchmarks
• The Build Plan — pick a target, see the gap, set the automatic monthly transfer — then cut the timeline nearly in half with a one-time injection and small recurring adds (36 months → 21 in the sample)
• The Rules — a boring separate account, the written emergency list, build-4-weeks-before-attacking-debt, the replenish rule, and why the buffer, the tax account and the equipment fund are three accounts, not one

Built for

Restaurants · trades and contractors · salons and studios · shops and e-commerce · every owner who has ever done this math at 2am without a spreadsheet.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no subscription. Not financial advice — it is your own bills, counted honestly.