THE BUSINESS
Specialist manufacturer in a demanding supply chain
The business is a UK-based precision engineering firm producing high-tolerance machined components. Their customer base includes supercar OEMs and professional motorsport teams, sectors where quality standards are exacting and delivery timelines are tight.
Two major customers account for a significant share of revenue. The business uses an invoice discounting facility, which means cashflow timing doesn't simply follow invoice dates, it depends on when invoices are raised, when they're eligible for drawdown, and when end-customers actually pay.
THE SITUATION
The customer group wanted better visibility
The business's largest customers would receive cashflow forecast updates each week that were proving challenging to understand and reconcile.
One of the key challenges of forecasting complexity was the invoice discounting facility. Because the company was upload most customer invoices into the facility, forecasting cash inflows coming into the business was actually driven by the timing of drawdowns on that facility rather than the actual timing of cash collections from customers.
As such, the old cashflow presentation made it difficult to distinguish the cash inflows from customers vs. the drawdowns from the facility.
Furthermore, the customer group required regular forecast updates on the short and medium-term financial health of the business in order to ensure continuity of supply into their own supply chain and therefore requested an enhanced cashflow forecast that provided the necessary visibility.
That's where 13WEEKS came in. The group brought me in specifically to work with the CFO and build a forecast that matched how the business actually operates.
WHAT I DELIVERED
A forecast built around how the business actually works
📊 26 week direct cashflow forecast
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A detailed 26 week cashflow forecast where you can see the inflows and outflows at a daily level of detail. Built around how their business operates, the data availability, and how what the CFO actually needed to make decisions.
💷 Invoice discount facility modelling
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Invoices raised and uploaded to the discounting facility as well as customer payments into the facility can now be linked into the cashflow forecast to allow for instant tracking of actual facility headroom.
📄 Cash inflows from customers based on live data
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Forecasted cash receipts from customers now based on open customer invoices and live sales orders as opposed to manual inputs by CFO.
🔎 Instant cash actuals visibility
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Created a cash actuals input table with keyword search, automatically tagging c.80% of bank postings to a cashflow line item, therefore allowing for fast visibility of actual cashflows vs. forecast.
📈 Enhanced and simplified customer group reporting
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Simple and clear cashflow reporting charts, forecast output, and variance reporting which now allows the customer group to have a clearer understanding of both the forecasted and actual cashflows.
🤝 Hands-on collaboration
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I worked directly with the CFO to understand the data sources, operational rhythms, and reporting requirements. The forecast was built with them.
🎓 Full CFO training
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The CFO was trained on every aspect of the model — how to update inputs, interpret outputs, and refresh the forecast in the future.