I tell clients to build their 13-week cash flow forecast in Excel. In a world where there's a new AI-powered finance tool launching every other week, recommending a spreadsheet sounds like old advice. But it's one of my core beliefs, and I'm going to explain exactly why. So if you are trying to decide if your 13 week cash flow forecast should be done in Excel or a software solution, then keep reading. The software options are genuinely impressive Let me be clear: the dedicate

Ask ten businesses who builds prepares their 13 week cash flow forecast, and you'll get three different answers. All of them correct. In my experience, there are three types of people who typically own this work. Which one applies depends on the size of the business, its structure, and sometimes how much trouble it's in. The Finance manager: CFO or FP&A In most businesses, the 13-week cash flow forecast sits with the finance function. Depending on the size of the company, tha

Why not 10 weeks? Why not 6 months? Why do so many businesses, advisors, and lenders land on 13 weeks as the standard horizon for a short-term cash flow forecast? There's a simple answer and a more important one. Both are worth understanding. Why 13 weeks cash flow forecast: the simple answer Thirteen weeks is three months. Three months is a quarter of a year. A quarter is one of the most common reporting intervals in business, for listed companies, PE-backed businesses, and

Most finance professionals know the two methods exist. Fewer can explain why it matters which one you use. Here's the short version: both methods get you to the same cash figure at the bottom. What they show you along the way is completely different. And depending on what you're trying to do with a forecast, picking the wrong one is like navigating with the wrong map. The indirect method: working backwards from profit The indirect method derives your cash flows by working bac

True or false: only distressed businesses forecast their cash flows. False. And it's one of the more persistent misconceptions I come across. The reality is that businesses at every stage of financial health forecast their cash flows. What changes is what they're trying to learn from it. Healthy businesses: making the most of excess cash When a business is in good financial health, cash flow forecasting isn't about survival. It's about strategy. The forecast becomes a plannin

Invoice discounting facilities are common, especially in businesses with long payment cycles and healthy order books. But in my experience, the cash flow forecasting behind them is almost always either wrong, manual, or both. Here's why, and what to do instead. Why standard cash flow forecasting doesn't work with invoice discounting When I build a 13-week cash flow forecast for a business with standard accounts receivable, the approach is straightforward. You look at the due

Actually, I've built you two. Building custom cashflow templates / models for businesses is what I focus on, so it might sound odd that I've just put free 13-week cash flow forecast templates on the website. But here's the thing: not everyone needs a custom build. Sometimes you just need a solid template, a clear video walkthrough, and a starting point that doesn't fight you. So that's what I've done. As of this week, you can get free access to our complete 13-week cashflow f

The first instinct when a crisis hits is to hope it blows over. I saw it with COVID. Businesses in early 2020 were saying "let's just wait and see, it'll sort itself out in a few weeks." And then the lockdowns came and suddenly there was no time to prepare. Only time to react. I've had the same feeling reading the news about the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Even in the most optimistic scenario, if everything was resolved tomorrow, the supply chain damage

I didn't set out to become a specialist in UK independent school finance. When I started 13WEEKS, the goal was straightforward: help CFOs, FP&A managers, and treasury teams build 13-week cashflow forecasts that actually reflect how their business works. I'd spent years watching businesses struggle with cashflow visibility, not because they weren't smart, but because nobody had ever built them the right tool. Then two governors from UK independent schools I'd worked with in th