Bean Counter's Cash Forecasting Workbook
Provided By: Bean Counter Accounting
Prepared By: Dave Marshall
This Work Book is designed to make your task of estimating your
future cash needs easy.
The Work Book is designed for small businesses that provide
services or buy and sell products.
This Work Book is provide as is and Bean Counter
makes no guarantees or assumes any liability for it's use.
http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/
mailto:info@dwmbeancounter.com
Cash Projection Worksheet
Sales Forecast Worksheet
Cash Payments Worksheet
Weekly Forecast Worksheet
Charts Worksheet
You access the different Worksheet Sections
by clicking on the "named" tabs located at the bottom
of the screen or the underlined links in each worksheet.
Overview and Purpose:
This Cash Forecasting Workbook was designed by me to be an easy to use tool to aid small businesses
in anticipating their cash needs. I've downloaded and looked at many templates that to me were
either little or no help (basically just a form where you filled in amounts but no calculations were performed
for you) and others that seemed much too complicated to actually use.
My Cash Forecast attempts to have you enter enough historical data to produce realistic future estimates
of receipts and payments, but not have you spending a lot of time entering prior year's historical financial
information from balance sheets, income statements and other financial documents.
Don't get me wrong, prior years information is one indicator of what may happen in the future
but things change and you also need to get out your crystal ball (current knowledge of your market conditions
and the economy) to prepare reasonable future estimates. In other words,
you need to mix a dose of the past with a dose of the future.
The Workbook covers any period of time from a month up to a maximum of 12 months.
Here again, many worksheets cover up to 5 years of projected financial information, but I intentionally limited
this projection to the "near" future where you will have to plan for and deal with relatively soon.
The Workbook is made up of 5 main sections:
(1) The Main Worksheet is
named Cash Projection and contains the following information:
(a) Cash Summary Section that summarizes all the estimated cash
receipts and payments.
(b) Basic Financial Information Section where you enter your historical financial information,
collection and payment patterns, and beginning balances.
(c) Sales and Payment information summarized and calculated
from the other two sheets - SalesForecast and CashPayments.
(d) Estimated purchases and inventory calculations for businesses that buy and sell product.
(2) Sales Forecast Section named SalesForecast.
This Section is used to estimate the sales amounts used in the.
Cash Forecast.
(3) Cash Payments Section named CashPayments which is
used to estimate your different types of payments (expenses).
(4) Weekly Forecast Section named WeeklyForecast which is
used to analyze the cash flow for a user specified month.
(5) Charts Section named Charts which display useful charts
and graphs.
Steps To Take To Prepare Your Projection
Required
1. Enter Historical Financial Information, Collection and Payment Patterns, and Beginning Balances
using the Cash Projection Worksheet. All required entries are highlighted in yellow --------------------------------------------->
2. Enter and/or Calculate your Estimated Monthly Sales using the Sales Forecast Worksheet.
All required entries are highlighted in yellow -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
3. Enter and/or Calculate your Estimated Monthly Payments using the Cash Payments Worksheet.
All required entries are highlighted in yellow -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Now,  that's not too difficult - is it ?
Optional
The Weekly Forecast Worksheet has been provided in order to enable you to break down a monthly
forecast into weeks and compare your budgeted (estimated) amounts with your actual amounts.
This may be helpful  in cases where most of your receipts and collections arrive at the end of a
month and a large percentage of your payments occur at the beginning of a month.
To use this worksheet, all you do is pick a month that you want to analyze and allocate (spread) your
monthly receipts and payments over the weeks that you estimate the receipts will be collected and
the weeks that the payments will be made. If you also want to compare your estimated amounts to your
actual amounts you need to enter your actual receipts and payments made during the weeks.
Helpful
The Chart Worksheet is provided to illustrate your results using charts and graphs.
Where do you get the required Financial Information  to input ?
Balance Sheet(s)
Income Statement(s)
Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Ageing Analysis and Reports
Prior Year(s) Monthly Sales Summaries and Reports
Trade Publications -Industry Ratios
Prior Year(s) Cost and Expense Analysis
Prior Year(s) Collection Patterns and Payment Patterns Analysis
Equipment Analysis and Needs Studies
Remember your estimates are only as good as the information and assumptions that they are based on.
GIGI - Garbage In - Garbage Out !
Good luck and hopefully no more sleepless nights worrying about Cash !
Dave Marshall
Bean Counter nor Dave Marshall accept any liability for any direct or consequential loss arising from any use
of this Cash Forecasting Workbook.