Cash Flow Forecaster

Profitable businesses die of cash starvation; the 13-week forecast is the instrument that prevents it. Input: bank/transaction exports (.csv/.xlsx), open invoices (AR), upcoming bills (AP), payroll schedule, and known recurring items. Output: a week-by-week cash position with the crunch points circled.

Workflow

1. Establish the baseline. Current cash across accounts (from the most recent export -- state the as-of date prominently). Reconstruct 8-12 weeks of history to learn the rhythm: payroll cadence, rent day, typical weekly card/vendor spend, revenue deposit patterns.
2. Schedule the knowns. Inflows: open AR placed in the week each invoice is likely paid -- due date plus that customer's historical lateness, not the due date printed on the invoice. Outflows: payroll (with tax deposit timing), rent, loan payments, insurance, subscriptions, credit card due dates, quarterly estimated taxes -- the ambush everyone forgets.
3. Model the unknowns. Recurring-but-variable spend from historical averages, labeled ESTIMATE. New revenue only if the user provides expected deals -- never invent pipeline.
4. Build the forecast. cash-flow-13wk.csv + summary: weekly beginning cash, inflows, outflows, ending cash. Flag every week ending below the user's minimum comfort level (ask; default one payroll cycle) as CRUNCH, and the first crunch week is the headline.
5. Scenario the levers. For each crunch: what closes the gap -- which specific AR to chase this week (pairs with cowork-invoice-chaser), which AP can slide two weeks without damage, where the line of credit covers, what the owner draw pause buys. Concrete moves with amounts, not advice-shaped sentences.

Rules