13-Week Cash Flow Forecast

Your P&L can show a good quarter while your bank account runs dry in week six. It happens constantly, and it happens to businesses that are growing — the bigger the job, the longer you float the materials and payroll before the check clears.

A 13-week cash flow forecast is the tool lenders, turnaround consultants, and CFOs reach for first. One quarter, one week at a time. Far enough out to see trouble coming, close enough that your estimates are still worth something.

What makes this one different

Most cash flow templates make you type a number into all thirteen columns and hope you remembered everything. This one has a separate tab where you simply list your open invoices and bills with the date you expect the money to move. The forecast reads that list and drops every amount into the right week by itself.

Enter an invoice once. The forecast is current. That is the whole reason people keep using this one instead of abandoning it in week three.

And then it stress-tests the answer.

Two dials: what if customers pay 20% light, and what if they pay two weeks late? Because that — not lost sales — is what actually causes a cash crisis in a small business.

In the example already loaded in the file, the forecast looks comfortable: never below $17,900, builds $7,000 over the quarter. Flip on the stress test and the low point drops to negative $11,000. Same business, same week, completely different plan.

What it tells you

• Your projected balance for every one of the next thirteen weeks
• Your lowest point — and the week number it lands on
• Whether you cross your minimum safe balance, and by how much
• The same answers again under stress
• A plain-English verdict: holds up, fragile, or action needed

Built for

Contractors and trades · agencies and consultancies · e-commerce and wholesale · restaurants and retail · anyone with payroll to meet, customers who pay slowly, and a bank balance they check more often than their P&L.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ins, no subscription.

Sample data is already loaded so you can see it working, then type over it.