# How do I use my books to work out how much cash I'll have over the next few weeks or months?

Applies to: United States · Updated 2026-09-28

Build a short-horizon cash forecast. Start from today's book balance in bank accounts reconciled through the latest statement, then place each receipt and payment in the week it will really happen: open invoices when your customers actually pay, open bills, payroll, loan and tax payments on their scheduled dates, plus what the books do not hold, like owner draws and planned purchases. Keep a running balance, read its lowest point and date, and refresh it weekly against actuals.

## What is a short-horizon cash forecast, and why can't the profit and loss or a budget answer this?

A short-horizon cash forecast lists the cash you expect to receive and pay in each coming week or month and carries the bank balance forward. AccountingTools' article on the cash budget describes this tool as itemizing the projected sources and uses of cash in a future period, and says it can identify exactly when additional cash will be needed, and how much. AccountingTools fills its cash budget from a company's other budgets; built from your books' open items instead, it is a forecast of where cash is going, not a plan. Three familiar reports answer other questions:

- **Profit and loss.** Intuit's help page "Differentiate Cash and Accrual basis" says an accrual-basis report shows income whether or not customers have paid their invoices, while a cash-basis report shows income only once cash is received. Either way, the report covers periods already over.
- **Budget.** AccountingTools' article on the difference between a budget and a forecast says a budget is a plan for where a business wants to go, while a forecast shows where it is actually going.
- **Statement of cash flows.** Intuit's help page on running a Statement of Cash Flows says it shows the cash that flowed in and out within a specific period. It explains the past; tracing where past cash went is a separate question.

## Are your books ready to forecast from?

Every line of the forecast comes from the ledger, so check four conditions first.

| Condition | How to check it |
|---|---|
| Bank and card accounts are reconciled to a recent statement | Find each account's last completed reconciliation. Intuit's help page on reconciling in QuickBooks Online says reconciling matches your recorded transactions with your bank and card statements, and that QuickBooks saves a report of each one under History by account on the Reconcile page. An old date leaves the opening balance unverified, and every later week inherits the error. |
| The receivables aging agrees with the books | Intuit's page "Match your aging reports" says the balance sheet, trial balance and receivables aging should match, with the balance sheet or trial balance run on the accrual basis. The same page says a mismatch is usually the aging report defaulting to current: set its aging method to Report date and run all three reports to the same date first. Only a difference that remains is a real mismatch. Intuit's page on unapplied cash payment income shows how to find payments never matched to an invoice on the Open Invoices report; an invoice left open after payment counts cash already received. |
| The payables aging shows only what you still owe | For each open bill on the payables aging, look for a check or expense already recorded to the same vendor for the same amount; Intuit's page on bills, checks and expenses warns that paying a bill that way can leave it showing unpaid. A match is a payment already made, so leave the bill out of the forecast. |
| Stale open items are cleared | Leave out any invoice you no longer expect to collect; Intuit's help page on the receivables aging report points to treating uncollectible balances as bad debts. |

The opening cash figure is the same on the cash or the accrual basis. The basis can decide whether open items are in the books at all: if you record sales and costs only when money moves and never enter invoices or bills, list the unpaid invoices you have sent and the bills you have received by hand. Either way, each item enters the forecast once, in the week its cash should move. Reading the receivables aging report itself is a related question.

## Which figures do the books already hold, and where does each come from?

Steven Bragg's AccountingTools podcast episode on cash forecasting accuracy says that, within a forecast of about one month, you can use the existing aged accounts receivable report to estimate when cash is coming in, and the aged payables report to predict when it goes out. The inputs and their usual homes are these.

| Input | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Opening cash | The current book balance of each bank account, once the reconciliation check passes (not the ending balance on the last reconciliation report, which stops at the statement date) |
| Open customer invoices and due dates | The receivables aging detail report. Intuit's help page on the receivables aging report says the QuickBooks Online A/R Aging detail report shows which customers have past-due balances and how long each transaction is past due |
| Open vendor bills and due dates | The payables aging report |
| Recurring commitments | Rent, insurance, software and similar fixed charges, read from recent months of bank activity |
| Financing payments | The lender's statement or repayment schedule, and each credit card payment in the week it is due, at the statement balance |
| Payroll and tax dates | The date your payroll provider takes each payroll from your bank account, from its records, and your own tax records |

Card purchases leave the bank only when the card is paid, so put expected card spending into the card payment that covers it. Count each payment once, whether it appears as a bill, a recurring charge, a card purchase or a card payment.

## How far ahead should the forecast run, and in what size of period?

Let the decision set both. To test a payroll five weeks out, run past it in periods small enough to show that week alone. To judge a purchase, run through the weeks after it in which payroll, rent and loan payments fall.

Weekly periods are common. AccountingTools' cash budget article says cash balances may fluctuate considerably within a single accounting period, masking shortfalls, and that weekly cash forecasts are quite common for that reason.

Accuracy falls with distance. The same article says a weekly cash budget begins to lose its relevance after one month and is largely inaccurate after two, and that many companies then switch to monthly periods. Bragg's podcast episode suggests a thick vertical line after the first four weeks as a reminder that everything to its right is suspect. If the decision is months away, extend in monthly periods and read them as rough.

## How do you turn due dates into the dates cash will really arrive?

A due date is when a customer should pay, not when they do. There are three ways to date expected receipts.

| Method | How it works | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Due date | Each open invoice lands in the week it falls due | Only if your own history shows customers pay on time; otherwise late payers push receipts into later weeks and near-term cash is overstated |
| Your collection pattern | Each open invoice is shifted by how long customers have actually taken to pay | A broad customer base with no dominant payer |
| Largest payers individually | Each large invoice is dated from that customer's own record; the pattern, or an even spread, covers the rest | Most businesses, and always when a few customers hold most of what you are owed |

Bragg's podcast episode supports the third method: it recommends individually forecasting the 20% of receivables and payables that make up 80% of the cash flows, because each is big enough to need its own best estimate, and says the rest can usually be spread evenly across the four weeks.

### How do you measure your own collection pattern?

AccountingTools' article on the schedule of expected cash collections builds the pattern from the percentage of credit sales collected within the month of sale and within each following 30-day period, and says receipts can be estimated customer by customer where payment histories show a clear pattern. In weeks, the steps are:

1. Export the invoices that fell due over the last several months, paid and still unpaid, with each one's due date and, if paid, the date its payment was recorded.
2. Count the days from due date to payment for each paid invoice.
3. Note each large customer's usual delay and how much it varies.
4. For everyone else, work out what share of invoice value arrived by the due week, one week later, two weeks later, and so on. Count the value still unpaid as not arrived, so the shares can total less than 100%; the gap is money your history says may not come.
5. Apply those delays and shares to today's open invoices. Do not assume the gap arrives.
6. Date an invoice already past due forward from today, since its due week is behind you. For a large customer, use how long its late invoices ran beyond the point this one has reached; for the rest, spread it over the coming weeks in the proportions your history shows for invoices at least this late. An invoice older than any your history shows being paid is not expected: leave it out.

When a few customers hold most of the receivables, a blended average will be badly wrong: date each from its own record. If one has no payment history, or has lately changed how it pays, run the forecast with its receipt in the expected week and again a week or two later. Chasing overdue invoices is a separate collections routine.

## What do you have to add by hand because the books do not hold it?

The ledger holds what has been invoiced, billed and paid. Bragg's podcast episode warns that whole types of payment get missed, citing a property tax payment that happens only once a year. Add these by hand:

- **Owner draws.** They are not bills, so they do not appear on the payables aging.
- **Planned purchases.** Equipment or stock you intend to buy has no bill yet.
- **Variable costs not yet billed.** Materials, fuel and other costs that follow activity need an estimate from recent weeks.
- **Receipts from sales not yet made.** Sales paid on the spot, in cash or by card, arrive from the first week and never appear as open invoices; new invoiced sales arrive once the forecast passes the dates your open invoices cover. Estimate both from recent history.
- **Periodic payments.** Quarterly or annual items such as insurance or property tax, and any loan or tax payment not entered as a bill, are easy to miss.

The same podcast episode recommends an annual calendar of payment events, marked with when you expect each one and reviewed every time you update the forecast.

## Where do payroll and fixed tax payments go?

Put each payroll and each tax payment in the week the money leaves your account, as your payroll and tax records show it, at the amount those records show. Do not spread them across periods: a payroll that leaves on a Friday needs the cash that Friday. Treat these as fixed: owner draws and planned purchases can move if the forecast shows a dip, but payroll and tax payments are the outflows the forecast exists to protect. How much to set aside for taxes is a separate question.

## What does a worked forecast look like?

A business with 30-day terms asks, on a Monday, whether it can buy a 6,000 machine in week 2 and still meet payroll. Its book balance this morning, in accounts reconciled through last month's statement, is 18,000. Customer A owes 22,000, due in week 2, and usually pays about two weeks late; Customer B owes 9,000, due in week 3, and pays on time; other customers owe 12,000, spread evenly over four weeks. Invoices raised from now on will not be paid before week 5, and receipts from them are estimated at 8,000 a week from recent sales. The owner's draws, the machine and those new-sales receipts are added by hand. All figures are invented. The table omits unbilled variable costs for brevity; a real forecast gives them a row, including the cost of producing the new sales.

| Line | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening balance | 18,000 | 13,800 | -3,200 | 4,800 | 14,800 | 16,600 |
| Customer A, due week 2, expected week 4 |  |  |  | 22,000 |  |  |
| Customer B, due week 3 |  |  | 9,000 |  |  |  |
| Other open invoices, spread evenly | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 | 3,000 |  |  |
| New sales, estimated (added by hand) |  |  |  |  | 8,000 | 8,000 |
| Total receipts | 3,000 | 3,000 | 12,000 | 25,000 | 8,000 | 8,000 |
| Open bills on due dates (payables aging) | 4,000 |  | 2,500 |  | 3,000 |  |
| Rent (recurring) | 3,200 |  |  |  | 3,200 |  |
| Payroll (payroll records) |  | 11,000 |  | 11,000 |  | 11,000 |
| Loan payment (lender schedule) |  |  | 1,500 |  |  |  |
| Tax payment (own tax records) |  |  |  | 4,000 |  |  |
| Owner draw (added by hand) |  | 3,000 |  |  |  | 3,000 |
| Machine (added by hand) |  | 6,000 |  |  |  |  |
| Total payments | 7,200 | 20,000 | 4,000 | 15,000 | 6,200 | 14,000 |
| Closing balance | 13,800 | -3,200 | 4,800 | 14,800 | 16,600 | 10,600 |

The week 6 closing balance of 10,600 looks comfortable. The low point is the answer: the balance is 3,200 short at the end of week 2, when payroll, an owner draw and the machine all leave. Had Customer A's 22,000 been placed on its due date, week 2 would have closed at 18,800 and the purchase would have looked safe.

## How do you read the result?

Read the lowest balance and its date first; the closing figure hides the dips. Then measure the gap below zero, or below any cushion you want to keep.

Next, find the assumption the low point turns on by changing one input at a time; AccountingTools' cash budget article notes that a cash budget provides a framework for evaluating the impact of different scenarios on cash balances. It is usually the date of the largest expected receipt or the size of a hand-added estimate. In the example, moving the machine to week 4 lifts the low point to 2,800 at the end of week 2. But if Customer A then pays a week later than its record suggests, week 4 closes at -7,200. The purchase turns on Customer A's payment date, so that is the assumption to watch.

Which bills to pay first from the payables aging, and whether to borrow, are separate decisions.

## How do you keep the forecast rolling and make it more accurate?

Bragg's podcast episode says a cash forecast in a smaller business probably comes out once a week, and recommends keeping a copy of each weekly forecast and comparing it with actual results as soon as the week is over. Each week, in this order:

1. Save the current version before changing anything.
2. Compare each line with what actually came in and went out.
3. Note the cause of each gap; the podcast's examples include customers paying a little later or earlier than expected.
4. Update the inputs: re-pull the bank balance and both agings, adjust each large customer's delay, and add missed items to the payment calendar.
5. Drop the finished week and add a new one at the end.

Skip the comparison and your collection and spending assumptions never improve, so the same error repeats every week. When you act on a forecast, for example by moving a purchase, put the change into it; the podcast says such adjustments need to go into the forecast and that the adjusted version is the one to keep for the comparison.

## Should you build it in your accounting system or in a spreadsheet?

Some systems project cash themselves. Intuit's help page "How to use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online", which covers QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite, says the planner bases its projection on QuickBooks data like future invoices, bills and expenses, and that you can edit those items or add a future item. Intuit's help page "Use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online and Intuit Enterprise Suite" says you can create repeating items, that planner items do not affect your books and that the report exports as a CSV, PDF or XLS file. It also says you set the planner up by connecting your bank and credit card accounts, and that it is not available in Intuit Accountant Suite, or in any version with Multicurrency on. Xero's undated U.S. page on budgeting tools and financial reports says Xero Analytics provides a short-term cash flow projection based on the due dates of approved invoices and bills. In the QuickBooks planner, check the date on each invoice it shows and edit it to the week you expect the money. If Xero's projection dates cannot be changed, export its Aged Receivables and Aged Payables reports, which Xero's page says can go to a spreadsheet, and date them there. Either way, add the hand-added items.

A spreadsheet built from exported reports works with any system; Intuit's help page on exporting reports to Excel says QuickBooks Online reports can be exported for use outside QuickBooks. You then refresh every line yourself. Either way, save each week's version as a dated file: a live projection changes with the books, and the comparison needs the old one.

## When should you not rely on the forecast?

Do not base a decision on the forecast in any of these conditions:

- **Unreconciled books.** The last reconciliation is old or left differences unresolved, so the opening balance is unverified.
- **An aging that does not tie out.** The receivables aging still disagrees with the balance sheet once the aging method and report dates match, or it holds unapplied payments or invoices you do not expect to collect.
- **A decision that rests only on the estimated weeks.** Past the first month or so the forecast is mostly estimated sales and costs rather than open items. Read those weeks as rough: use them to see whether a later decision looks tight, re-test it weekly as open items replace estimates, and treat it as settled only once its date is inside the first month.
- **A dominant payer without a track record.** Much of the expected cash depends on a customer with no payment history.
- **Recent misses you cannot explain.** Recent weeks' forecast-against-actual gaps were large and their causes are unknown.
- **A change the forecast has not caught up with.** A large customer has changed how it pays, or a new main supplier has different terms, and the forecast still uses the old pattern. Update those items, running the customer with two receipt dates, before relying on it. Bragg's podcast episode notes that such changes are always going on, so the investigation never stops.

## Sources

1. AccountingTools — *Cash budget definition*, January 21, 2026. https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/cash-budget
2. Intuit Inc. — *Differentiate Cash and Accrual basis*, updated 8/4/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/report-management/differentiate-cash-accrual-basis/L3RvRm1vW_US_en_US
3. AccountingTools — *The difference between a budget and a forecast*, February 05, 2026. https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-a-budget-and-a-forecast.html
4. Intuit Inc. — *How to run a Statement of Cash Flows*, updated 8/5/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/financial-reports/run-statement-cash-flows/L7f72hT6Q_US_en_US
5. Intuit Inc. — *Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online*, updated 8/5/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/statement-reconciliation/reconcile-account-quickbooks-online/L3XzsllsK_US_en_US
6. Intuit Inc. — *Match your aging reports*, updated 8/4/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/financial-reports/get-aging-reports-match/L9T7gcIJw_US_en_US
7. Intuit Inc. — *Unapplied cash payment income on your profit and loss*, updated 8/4/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/financial-reports/unapplied-cash-payment-income-profit-loss/L35Y3Uvka_US_en_US
8. Intuit Inc. — *Run an accounts receivable aging report in QuickBooks*, updated 8/5/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/accounts-receivable-reports/run-accounts-receivable-aging-report/L4N7PC2hg_US_en_US
9. Intuit Inc. — *Differences between bills, checks, and expenses*, updated 8/5/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/accounts-payable/learn-difference-bills-checks-expenses-quickbooks/L0ZtL2TYI_US_en_US
10. AccountingTools — *Cash Forecasting Accuracy (#187)*, March 14, 2020. https://www.accountingtools.com/podcast-blog/187
11. AccountingTools — *Schedule of expected cash collections*, March 03, 2026. https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/schedule-of-expected-cash-collections.html
12. Intuit Inc. — *How to use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online*, updated 8/5/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/budget-planning/use-cash-flow-planner-quickbooks-online/L3pbHqdoF_US_en_US
13. Intuit Inc. — *Use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online and Intuit Enterprise Suite*, updated 8/3/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/budget-forecast-reports/use-cash-flow-planner-quickbooks-online/L2l59mIqe_US_en_US
14. Xero — *Budgeting tools and financial reports for your business*, undated. https://www.xero.com/us/accounting-software/run-financial-reports/
15. Intuit Inc. — *Export reports to Excel*, updated 8/4/2026. https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/report-management/export-reports-excel-quickbooks-online/L7iAoP97n_US_en_US

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