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.