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13-Week Cash Flow Forecast Template

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🎁 Free Excel Template

Your P&L reports the quarter. Your bank account has a worst week.

A free Excel template that takes your opening cash, revenue, collection and payment terms, and recurring costs — and returns a week-by-week cash forecast for the next quarter, including the exact week your balance hits bottom. Built by experienced finance professionals.

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  • Experienced finance professionals
  • Used by US small & mid-sized businesses
  • Excel format
  • No credit card required
  • Updated 2026
Output — Key metrics, 13 weeks
Total revenue booked
$611,198
Total cash inflows
$419,109
Total cash outflows
($535,604)
Net cash flow
($116,495)
Ending cash, week 13
$133,505
Lowest cash week
Week 5
Trough of $129,677 — three weeks before the quarter's first full collection cycle catches up.
Ending cash by week ($000)
250 190 130 lowest cash Open 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Ending cash Lowest cash week Dashed line = opening cash
Sample output: 13 weeks of ending cash, and the week it bottoms out
What's inside the file

An Excel file with three sheets and one job: show you the next thirteen weeks.

One input page, one output page. Fifteen inputs to fill, thirteen weeks to read.

Cover sheet

Entity name, usage notes, and an index that links straight to the input and output pages. Open it once, read it once, you are done.

Inputs sheet

Seven assumptions — start date, opening cash, monthly revenue, growth, COGS %, AR days, AP days — plus eight recurring expense lines, each set to monthly or bi-weekly. Yellow cells with blue text are the only ones you edit.

Output sheet

Seven key metrics and the full 13-week grid: revenue, COGS, gross margin, AR collections, vendor payments, recurring expenses, net cash flow, and opening and ending cash for every single week.

Inside the template

Seven assumptions. Eight expense lines. Thirteen weeks out.

The three inputs that do the real work are COGS %, AR days and AP days — they decide when money moves, not just how much. Every recurring expense carries its own frequency, so payroll can run bi-weekly while rent and loan payments run monthly. That single detail is what produces the sawtooth in your cash line, and it is exactly what a monthly forecast averages away.

Inputs — One pager
Assumptions
Start Date · first day of week 101-Jan
Opening Cash250,000
Monthly Revenue200,000
Revenue Growth % / mo2.0%
COGS % of Revenue45.0%
AR Days · days to collect30
AP Days · days to pay30
Recurring Expenses
Rent8,500Monthly
Payroll32,000Bi-weekly
Payroll Tax7,800Bi-weekly
Insurance3,200Monthly
Utilities1,400Monthly
Software2,200Monthly
Loan Payment4,500Monthly
Marketing3,000Monthly
You type here Calculated on the output sheet
Input panel: 15 fields, same colour convention as the file
The problem this solves

A 55% gross margin business, $116,000 down in one quarter.

Nothing in the sample scenario is broken. Revenue grows 2% a month, gross margin is 55%, every bill is one a real business has to pay. The business is profitable on paper across all thirteen weeks. Its cash balance still falls by six figures — because revenue and cash are two different events separated by your collection terms.

Revenue booked across 13 weeks$611,198
Cash actually collected in those weeks$419,109
Sitting in receivables, not in your bank$192,089
Sample from the file. At 30 AR days, weeks 1 through 4 collect nothing from this quarter's sales — while payroll runs every second week regardless.

That is the mechanism behind almost every solvent business that misses a payment: not a margin problem, a timing problem. And it is invisible on a monthly view. The sample quarter ends at $133,505, which looks perfectly comfortable, while the real low point is $129,677 in week five — after two payroll runs and before the first collections arrive. A monthly forecast reports the comfortable number and never mentions the tight one.

Thirteen weeks is the horizon where timing becomes visible and still actionable. Far enough out to see the trough coming, close enough that you can still do something about it — pull a collection forward, move a payment run, draw on the line before you need it rather than the week you do.

How to use it

Four steps. Twenty minutes to set up.

Then a ten-minute refresh each week as actuals come in.

1

Cash & revenue

Start date for week 1, cash in the bank today, current monthly revenue, and the growth rate you would defend to a lender.

2

Timing terms

COGS as a percentage of revenue, AR days, AP days. Use your actual averages, not your stated terms — the gap between the two is usually the whole story.

3

Recurring expenses

Eight lines with amount and frequency. Set payroll and payroll tax to bi-weekly if that is how they run; keep rent, insurance and debt service monthly.

4

Read the 13 weeks

Total inflows, total outflows, net cash flow, ending cash — and the lowest cash week. Start with that week and work backwards.

Is this for you?

Honest qualification. No fluff.

This template is for you if:

  • You are a new business, or launching a new project, and need a forward view of cash for the coming quarter.
  • You want a fast, high-level 13-week cash flow picture — a ballpark, not a fully built forecast.
  • You want to see your tightest week before you reach it, not on the day.
  • You know your revenue, collection and payment terms, and recurring costs well enough to enter them.

This is not for you if:

  • You need invoice-level AR aging — this models average AR days, not customer by customer.
  • You need daily treasury, multi-bank sweeps, or intraday positioning.
  • You need multi-entity consolidation or FX-aware forecasting.
  • You are pre-revenue with no billing cycle — the burn rate calculator fits better.
  • You only need to decide who to pay this Monday — that is a one-week question.

This is a high-level 13-week cash flow calculator. If you want a rolling forecast built and maintained from your bank statements and accounting software, call us and we'll set it up for you.

Frequently Asked

Questions about the template, answered honestly.

What format is the template?
It is a Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) file with three sheets: Cover, Inputs, and Output. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets (with import), and most spreadsheet tools. No macros and no add-ins.
Why does the forecast show no collections in the first few weeks?
Because of your AR days input. At 30 AR days, invoices raised in week 1 are not collected until around week 5, so the opening weeks show costs going out with nothing coming in from this quarter's sales. That lag is the most common reason a profitable business runs short of cash, and modelling it honestly is the main point of a 13-week forecast.
Does it handle bi-weekly payroll?
Yes. Every recurring expense line has a frequency field, so payroll and payroll tax can run bi-weekly while rent, insurance and loan payments run monthly. In the sample scenario that means outflows alternate between roughly $45,100 and $5,300 a week — the sawtooth you can see in the cash line above, and precisely what a monthly forecast averages away.
Why 13 weeks instead of a monthly forecast?
A monthly forecast gives you one closing balance per month and hides everything inside it. The sample quarter closes at $133,505 while its real low is $129,677 in week five — a number a monthly view never shows you. Thirteen weeks is also the standard horizon lenders, banks and turnaround professionals ask for, so producing one puts you in the format they already read.
Is this really free? Any catch?
Yes, free. We ask for your email so we can send the file and follow up if you have questions. No credit card. No upsell sequence. You can unsubscribe at any time.
What if I want this built and updated every week for my business?
EasePro's Cash Flow Management Services include a 13-week rolling forecast maintained against actuals, a weekly decision brief, and working capital optimisation. If you want the single-week version first, use the Weekly Cash Decision Calculator; if you are pre-revenue and the question is runway rather than timing, use the Burn Rate Calculator.