The sales report looks healthy. Your accountant says the month was profitable. Yet next week’s payroll, supplier payments and rent all need cash before a major customer settles its invoice.
That gap is worth seeing early. A rolling 13-week cash forecast gives a business owner and accountant a shared view of when money is expected to arrive, when it must leave and which week needs a decision.
You can begin in Excel or Google Sheets. The useful part is the discipline behind the dates, not the sophistication of the dashboard.
Start with the bank, then build forward
Choose a clear cut-off date and reconcile the opening bank position. Separate unrestricted cash from restricted balances. Show undrawn borrowing facilities separately instead of treating them as money already received.
Use 13 weekly columns. Each week’s closing cash becomes the following week’s opening cash:
Opening cash + expected receipts − expected payments = closing cash.
BDC, Canada’s business development bank, recommends a 13-week rolling view updated weekly for tighter short-term cash visibility. This is a management practice, not a UAE regulatory filing requirement.
Invoice due dates are a starting point, not a promise
Export receivables from your ERP, but add an expected collection date and the reason for it. A customer awaiting delivery approval is different from one whose payment has been confirmed. Record disputes, retentions and partial-payment arrangements separately.
Give the largest expected receipts an owner. Ask what evidence supports the date: a remittance advice, a confirmed payment run or simply the contract terms? Keep uncertain sales opportunities outside committed receipts, or show them as a separate scenario.
For payments, include payroll, suppliers, rent, loan repayments, licence renewals, annual subscriptions and planned equipment purchases. For UAE businesses, include expected VAT and Corporate Tax cash payments using your own verified obligations and due dates. This article does not set those dates.
A simple example: the closing total can hide the difficult week
The following figures are fictional, in AED. They illustrate timing rather than represent a Finaxil client.
| Cash movement | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening cash | 80,000 | 70,000 | 35,000 |
| Receipts | 45,000 | 25,000 | 70,000 |
| Payments | (55,000) | (60,000) | (40,000) |
| Closing cash | 70,000 | 35,000 | 65,000 |
Now move the AED 25,000 receipt from Week 2 to Week 3. Week 2 closes at AED 10,000, although Week 3 still closes at AED 65,000. If management has chosen an illustrative minimum buffer of AED 20,000, the original plan appears comfortable while the delayed-collection scenario breaches it.
Also check the order of payments within a tight week. A receipt expected on Friday cannot fund a payroll payment on Tuesday. Switch those weeks to a daily view when necessary.
Make the sheet difficult to misread
- Use one cash convention: forecast what actually reaches or leaves the bank. If customer and supplier amounts include VAT, do not add that same VAT again as a separate receipt or payment. Model the net tax settlement separately using a reconciled calculation.
- Separate cash from profit: depreciation is not a bank payment. Loan principal is a cash outflow even though it is not an operating expense. Avoid counting an invoice and its subsequent collection as two receipts.
- Handle transfers properly: movements between your own accounts are not new cash for the consolidated business. Preserve them when forecasting individual accounts.
- Label assumptions: distinguish confirmed dates, estimates and scenarios. Set an owner and last-updated date for material items.
- Keep currencies visible: consider which account needs funding, not only the combined reporting-currency balance.
The Australian government’s cash-flow planning guide provides a useful general structure for opening balances, receipts, payments and closing balances. Its local tax references should not be copied into a UAE model.
Use AI for questions, not invented payment dates
Once your numbers reconcile, an approved AI tool can help explain differences or identify questions for the weekly meeting. Start with an aggregated or masked summary, rather than uploading raw customer or payroll records without an approved arrangement.
Using this checked weekly cash summary, identify the lowest projected cash point and the largest forecast-to-actual variances. Show the figures behind each observation. Do not invent collection dates, recommend delaying statutory payments or assume an unapproved facility is available. List the assumptions the finance team should verify.
That is a suggested prompt. Recalculate its answers and keep decisions with the accountable owner. ERP exports or APIs can refresh source data, but expected collection dates still need business input.
Leave the weekly meeting with an action
Replace the completed week with actual bank movements, explain the largest differences and add a new Week 13. Keep the previous forecast so you can see which assumptions repeatedly fail. Business Victoria’s forecasting guidance likewise stresses comparing estimates with actual results.
Assign concrete actions: confirm a disputed invoice, follow up a promised receipt, reconsider a discretionary purchase or discuss payment arrangements with a supplier before the due date. A projected shortfall should start a conversation early, rather than become a surprise on payment day.
For this week: bring your reconciled cash position, receivables, payables and known commitments into one sheet. Then test what happens if your largest expected receipt is two weeks late.
If your owner and accountant are working from different cash pictures, ask Finaxil to help structure a practical cash forecast. Tell us your accounting system and where timing becomes difficult. Our Virtual CFO support connects reporting with the decisions the business needs to make.
Sources checked on 25 October 2026. The example and workflow are practical management guidance, not a funding commitment or a determination of your tax obligations.
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