I'm not a fan of 13 week cashflow templates. I've built you one anyway.
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
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 forecasting materials: a foundation model, an advanced model in three regional versions (UK, Australia, and New Zealand), video user guides, a PDF manual, and a free consultation if you want help making it work for your business.
Let me walk you through what's in there and, just as importantly, who it's for and who it isn't.
What you get
There are two models, at two levels of detail.
The Foundation model
This is the generalised one, designed to apply across most businesses. It covers the core of what a 13 week forecast needs to do:
AR and AP ageing report forecasting, new sales and purchases budget to cash phasing, forecast vs. actuals tracking, and dashboard reporting. It comes with a video user guide showing exactly how to use the workbook, plus a PDF user manual.
If you've never run a 13-week cash flow before and you want to get moving quickly, start here.
The Advanced model
This one I'm particularly pleased with, because it's the same approach I use when building forecasts for paying clients. Not a watered-down version. The same detailed modelling.
It forecasts cash at the transaction level. Your cash inflows are driven by your actual accounts receivable and sales order data. Your outflows are driven by accounts payable and purchase orders. Customer and supplier master data maps payment terms and spend categories, so every invoice lands in the right week on the right line of your forecast.
It also handles the bit most templates ignore completely: sales tax. VAT modelling is built in for the UK version, and there are separate versions with GST modelling for Australia and New Zealand. The model works out when you'll actually pay HMRC (or your local authority) based on your filing frequency, invoice by invoice.
The details that usually get skipped
A few things in the advanced model that I think matter more than people realise.
Forecast versions. One of the most common challenges with forecast vs. actuals is a simple question: which version of the forecast are you comparing against? The model archives every version of your forecast as you go, so you can compare your actuals against any forecast you've ever produced. It's also a nice way to see whether your forecast accuracy is improving over time. In my experience, most businesses never track this, and it's where a lot of the learning is.
Bank postings that tag themselves. You paste your bank data in, and a keyword lookup automatically categorises each posting to the right line of your cash flow. Manually tagging every transaction each week is way too time-consuming, and it's the kind of friction that kills a forecasting process within a month. Once you've built up your keywords, most of your actuals categorise themselves.
Assumptions and real data working together. For cost lines like materials, the model looks at both your budget assumption and what's actually sitting in your AP and purchase orders, and takes whichever is greater. So you always have the most complete estimate of your cash outflows, not just whichever number you happened to type in last.
Liquidity, not just cash. The forecast doesn't stop at closing cash. You can layer in credit facilities to see your total available liquidity each week, which is the number that actually matters when you're managing cash runway and headroom.
If you've seen what's often called a 13WCF built properly inside a business, this is that. Cash flow visibility at invoice level, with proper forecast vs. actuals discipline on top.
Who this is for (and who it isn't)
I'll be straight with you, because I'd rather you know before you spend an afternoon on it.
These templates assume your business operates on credit with its customers and suppliers. If that's you, the advanced model in particular might fit your business almost perfectly. Whether you're a CFO, a finance director, or the person who's simply ended up owning cash flow management, you can be up and running quickly. The video guides walk through every tab.
But if you're a retail business with no receivables ledger, or a project-based business where cash follows milestones rather than invoices, a lot of the methodology won't quite work for you. That's not a flaw in your business. It's the limitation of any standardised template, including mine. Good cashflow forecasting follows the shape of the business, and templates can only assume one shape.
That's exactly why my actual work is custom-built models. I've built them for small single-entity businesses with invoice discounting facilities, all the way up to multinationals needing local finance managers across multiple countries to input their own assumptions into one consolidated model. Treasury management setups, working capital deep-dives, the lot.
Go get it the 13 week cashflow template
The materials are free on the website now: the free 13-week cash flow forecast template at both levels of detail, the regional versions, the video guides, and the manual. Sign up, download, and build your forecast. If 13WEEKS can save you a few weeks of building from scratch, that's a win for both of us.
And if you work through it and realise your business needs something the template can't do, that's where I come in. I've helped businesses in exactly that position get real visibility over their cash position in a matter of weeks, with models built around how their business actually works. If that resonates with where you are right now, book a call and let's have a conversation. I'd want to understand your specific situation before saying anything useful. And if I can't help, at the very least we'll have brainstormed how you might approach 13-week cash forecasting for your business. Low pressure, either way.
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