"We have plenty of runway."
That was Tuesday. By Friday, the same CEO was on the phone with his lawyer discussing bridge loan terms.
What happened in three days? Nothing. The cash crisis had been building for months. He just couldn't see it until it arrived.
His forecast was an annual budget, updated quarterly. It told him what was supposed to happen. It couldn't tell him what was actually going to happen in the next 90 days.
Why 13 Weeks
Not 12. Not a quarter. Thirteen weeks.
Here's why: 13 weeks is the minimum window where you can still do something about what you see. Shorter than that and you're just watching the train wreck in slow motion. Longer than that and the forecast becomes fiction—too many variables, too much uncertainty, too easy to ignore.
At 13 weeks, you can see payroll funding gaps before they become crises. You can spot the quarter where that big contract renewal doesn't happen. You can identify the month where three annual subscriptions hit simultaneously and cash drops by $80K in a week.
More importantly: at 13 weeks, you still have time to act. Accelerate a collection. Delay an expense. Renegotiate a payment term. Adjust a hiring plan. The forecast isn't just information. It's a decision tool.
What Most Companies Have Instead
Most companies I work with have one of two things:
An annual budget that was accurate for about six weeks after it was created. It lives in a spreadsheet somewhere. People reference it in board meetings. Nobody actually believes it anymore.
Or: nothing. Cash management by bank balance. "We check the account and if there's money, we're fine." This works until it doesn't, and when it stops working, it stops fast.
The annual budget tells you what you hoped would happen. The bank balance tells you what already happened. Neither tells you what's about to happen.
The 13-week forecast fills that gap.
A Story About Three Weeks
A client—$18M professional services firm, 60 employees, good margins on paper—came to us because distributions kept getting smaller even though revenue was growing.
Classic growing broke pattern.
We built the 13-week forecast in week one. Not a complex model. Just: here's what's coming in, here's what's going out, here's where you'll land each Friday.
Week three showed a problem: they had a $340K tax payment due in eight weeks that nobody had been tracking. It wasn't in the budget because it was estimated taxes, not a fixed expense. It wasn't on anyone's radar because it wasn't due yet.
Eight weeks out, they had options. They accelerated two collections, delayed a non-critical software purchase, and restructured a vendor payment. The tax payment happened on time without drama.
If they'd found out at two weeks? Different story. Probably a line of credit draw, definitely some stress, possibly a missed payment.
The forecast didn't save them $340K. It gave them eight weeks instead of two. That's the difference.
The Mechanics
A 13-week forecast isn't complicated. It's tedious to build the first time and simple to maintain after that.
Cash in: What's actually coming? Not what's invoiced—what's going to hit the bank, and when. This means knowing your customers' payment patterns, not just your payment terms. Net-30 on paper is often net-45 in practice. The forecast has to reflect reality, not contracts.
Cash out: What's actually going? Payroll is easy—it's fixed and predictable. Vendor payments are harder—when do you actually pay, not when are invoices due? Tax payments, annual subscriptions, insurance renewals, debt service—all the lumpy stuff that doesn't show up in monthly P&L but absolutely shows up in cash.
The roll: Every week, one week falls off the back, one week gets added to the front. The near-term weeks get more accurate. The far-term weeks get more visible. The rhythm is weekly because cash moves weekly.
The first build takes 4-6 hours. After that, 30 minutes a week maintains it. If it takes longer than that, the model is too complicated.
What Changes When You Have It
The question shifts.
Without a forecast, the question is: "Do we have enough cash?" And the answer is always: check the bank account.
With a forecast, the question is: "What's coming?" And the answer is: we can see it, and here's what we're doing about it.
That shift—from reactive to proactive—changes how decisions get made.
"Can we afford this hire?" becomes "What does the forecast show if we add $12K/month starting in week 6?" You can model it, see the impact, make the call.
"Should we take this project?" becomes "What does the cash profile look like if we invest $40K in delivery costs and don't get paid until week 12?" You can see the dip, decide if you can absorb it.
"Are we going to make payroll?" stops being a question you ask. You know. Thirteen weeks out.
The Objections
"Our business is too unpredictable."
Then you need this more, not less. Unpredictable businesses benefit most from early warning. If you can't predict revenue precisely, you can at least predict the scenarios—and plan for each.
"We don't have time to maintain it."
Thirty minutes a week. If your finance team doesn't have thirty minutes, you have a bigger problem than forecasting.
"Our systems can't support it."
The first version is a spreadsheet. It's not a software implementation. It's a discipline.
What It Doesn't Solve
The 13-week forecast won't tell you why your margins are eroding. It won't tell you which customers are profitable. It won't tell you whether your pricing strategy makes sense.
It tells you one thing: what's going to happen to cash. That's it.
But knowing what's going to happen to cash is the difference between managing the business and getting managed by it. It's the foundation that makes everything else possible.
You can't have a strategic conversation about growth when you're worried about payroll. You can't make investment decisions when you don't know your runway. You can't plan with confidence when every month is a surprise.
The forecast creates the stability that makes strategy possible.
The Pattern
Here's what I've seen over and over:
Company without a forecast: operates in 2-week windows. Every decision is urgent. Leadership is reactive. Cash feels like weather—something that happens to you.
Same company, 60 days after implementing a 13-week forecast: operates in 90-day windows. Decisions happen earlier. Leadership is proactive. Cash becomes something you manage, not something you survive.
The forecast doesn't change the business. It changes how the business gets run.
The Starting Point
If you don't have a 13-week forecast, start one this week.
Open a spreadsheet. List the next 13 Fridays. For each Friday, estimate: starting cash, cash in, cash out, ending cash. Use last month's actuals as a guide. Don't overthink it.
The first version will be wrong. That's fine. The point isn't accuracy—it's visibility. Even a rough forecast shows you things you couldn't see before.
Refine it weekly. Within a month, you'll wonder how you operated without it.
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