Service
Thirteen-Week Cash Flow
A cash forecast that is not reconciled weekly is a mood board. The thirteen-week instrument earns its keep in the variance column, not the projection.
The work
What the work actually is.
A direct-method cash forecast, maintained weekly: foresight as a working instrument.
Most companies that “have a forecast” have a spreadsheet built once for a lender and opened rarely since. The instrument is different in kind: receipts and disbursements by week, direct from the bank record, thirteen weeks forward, and re-cut every week against what actually happened. The projection is the least of it. The variance column is where the business tells the truth about itself: which customers actually pay on terms, which vendor promises hold, where the model of the company and the company disagree.
The discipline moves cash decisions forward in time. A payroll pinch surfaces in week nine instead of week one. Vendor payments get sequenced deliberately instead of triaged at the deadline. The hire, the purchase, the drawdown each get decided against a dated forward view rather than a bank balance and a feeling.
Installed, not advised: Lotus builds the model on the company’s real receipt and disbursement categories, reconciles it to the bank, and runs the weekly review alongside the team until the cadence holds without us. The forecast that dies when the consultant leaves was never an instrument.
Deliverables
What you keep.
- Thirteen-week direct-method forecast
- Receipts and disbursements by week, reconciled to the bank record, rolled forward every week.
- Weekly variance review
- Forecast against actuals, material variances explained in writing, the forward view re-cut.
- Cash decision calendar
- Hires, purchases, drawdowns: the dates each must be decided, mapped against the forecast that funds them.
Getting started
A cash autopsy on the trailing eight weeks: receipts and disbursements from the bank record, categorized weekly, and the first thirteen-week forward view cut from that base.
The practice
The rest of Finance & CFO Advisory.
- Finance & CFO Advisory overview
- Investor Materials & Data Rooms The deck and the data room behind it: narrative and numbers that agree under questioning.
- SBA Loan Packaging A 7(a) file an underwriter can say yes to: coverage reality, equity injection, the lender’s read anticipated.
- Cap Table & Scenario Modeling The ownership record kept clean, and the dilution conversations moved from someday to the calendar.
- Debt & Amortization Modeling Debt schedules that match the loan documents, and covenant headroom watched before it is news.
- Receivables & Working Capital AR aging as a cash lever: collection cadence, terms discipline, the working-capital cycle measured.
- Cost Reduction & Spend Analysis Spend taken apart line by line: vendor consolidation, renewals negotiated, the recurring-spend audit.
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