Cash Flow Snapshot

"Will I make payroll next month?"

Workflow

Step 1 — Identify available data sources

1. QuickBooks — primary source for AR aging, AP, and fixed costs
2. PayPal — transaction history and settlement timing
3. Stripe — charge and payout history
4. Square — sales and payout history
5. CSV upload — fallback if no connector is connected

Step 2 — Pull the data

• AR aging report: customer name, invoice amount, invoice date, due date, days outstanding
• AP: vendor name, amount due, due date
• Recurring fixed costs: rent, payroll, subscriptions (look for recurring transactions)

• Settlement history: transaction date, amount, settlement date
• Use settlement lag (transaction date → payout date) to compute each source's average and variance payment delay

• Parse as income/expense tabular data
• Required columns (flexible naming): date, amount, type (income or expense), description
• If columns are ambiguous, show the header row and ask the user to confirm mapping

Step 3 — Compute historical payment timing

• Mean payment lag — average days from invoice/transaction date to receipt
• Payment variance — standard deviation of payment lag across last 6–12 payments
• Use variance to set confidence band width (see Step 4)

Step 4 — Build the 30/60/90-day forecast

band_pct = weighted_avg_stddev_days / avg_payment_lag_days
low  = net_cash × (1 − band_pct)
high = net_cash × (1 + band_pct)

Step 5 — Flag named risks

• Late-payer risk: "Customer X historically pays 18 days late; that shifts their $8,400 invoice out of the 30-day window into day 48."
• Payroll crunch: "Payroll ($22,000) hits April 15. Low-band cash on hand April 14: $19,200. Shortfall risk: $2,800."
• Thin data warning: "Only 2 payments on record for Customer Y — confidence band set to default ±30%."
• No-connector warning: "Running on CSV data only — no real-time AP or recurring cost data. Confidence bands are wider than normal."

Step 6 — Deliver outputs

Cash Flow Snapshot — [date range]
Source(s): [connectors used]

            Expected    Low       High
30-day net: $X,XXX     $X,XXX    $X,XXX
60-day net: $X,XXX     $X,XXX    $X,XXX
90-day net: $X,XXX     $X,XXX    $X,XXX

⚠ Risks flagged: [count]
  • [risk 1]
  • [risk 2]
  ...

1. Summary — the 30/60/90 forecast table with confidence bands. Beneath each window row, expand inline sub-rows showing the individual transactions that make up its inflows (green) and outflows (red). This makes the estimates auditable without leaving the Summary sheet.
2. Detail — all transactions grouped by window, sorted by date within each group. Include a running net column (cumulative inflows minus outflows within the window) and a subtotal row at the bottom of each window showing total inflows, total outflows, and net. Grey out past transactions in a separate section at the bottom for reference. Ensure all three windows have rows even if one is empty — show a "No transactions in this window" placeholder row.
3. Risks — the flagged risks with dollar impact and affected window.

Approval gates

"This forecast is based on [sources listed]. It is not a substitute for accounting advice — verify with your bookkeeper before making financing decisions."

Reference files