Profit is an opinion; cash is a fact. The 13-week cash forecast is the single most useful cash tool a founder can run — and most don’t run one until it’s too late.
Why 13 weeks
A quarter is long enough to see trouble coming and short enough to forecast accurately. Crucially, it’s built weekly, on actual receipts and payments — not accounting accruals that hide the timing of real cash.
What goes into it
- Opening cash each week.
- Expected collections, by customer and risk-weighted.
- Payroll, statutory dues and vendor payments.
- Loan servicing and one-off outflows.
- Closing cash — and the weekly low point.
Read the low point, not the month-end
A healthy month-end balance can hide a mid-month trough where payroll or a covenant actually gets missed. The weekly low point is where the risk lives.
Runway and burn
Define runway from cash and net burn, watch the trend rather than a single month, and pressure-test it against a slower-revenue scenario. If a bad quarter breaks the plan, you want to know now.
We run this cadence for the companies we work with, with escalation triggers that fire before cash gets tight — not after.