Do you know what your bank balance will be in 90 days?
Most small business owners check their bank balance (like, obsessively, if you’re anything like me). Far fewer know what that balance will look like in three months — and that gap is where businesses can get into trouble.
Cash flow problems don't announce themselves in advance. They show up as a payroll week that lands right before a slow month, or a tax bill that coincides with a client who pays late. By the time you feel the squeeze, your options are limited.
That's why we built the Cash Flow Forecast tool: a browser-based dashboard you can use to map out your next 90 days of cash in and cash out, week by week, without a spreadsheet!
What the tool does
The Cash Flow Forecast lets you enter your current bank balance, your recurring income sources, and your regular expenses. It automatically projects your weekly ending balance forward across a 13-week window, flags any weeks where you'd go negative, and gives you a visual snapshot of where your money is headed.
You can also add one-time items — a big supplier payment, a tax installment, an equipment purchase — and see exactly which week they'll hit. Every cell in the weekly detail table is editable, so you can override any projected number with an actual figure as the weeks go by.
Who it's for
Sole proprietors and freelancers
When you're running a one-person business, your personal finances and your business finances are often intertwined, and income can be lumpy. One month you close three new clients. The next month is quiet.
The forecast helps you answer the question that keeps solo operators up at night: can I pay myself next month? And how much?
Enter your typical project income as a recurring line (weekly or biweekly if you invoice regularly, or one-time if you work in project chunks), add your fixed costs (software subscriptions, insurance, quarterly taxes) and you'll see a realistic picture of where you stand.
Example: A freelance graphic designer invoices roughly $4,000 every two weeks but has a $6,000 estimated tax payment due in April. Plugging both into the forecast immediately shows whether the tax payment creates a gap, and how many weeks of buffer she needs to set aside beforehand.
Service-based small businesses
Bookkeepers, consultants, marketing agencies, cleaning services, photographers — any business where revenue comes from client relationships rather than daily transactions benefits from this kind of forward visibility.
Common use cases:
Spotting a cash crunch before it happens. If payroll is biweekly and your biggest retainer client pays net-30, there are months where the timing works against you. The forecast makes that visible (ahead of time!) so you can follow up on invoices earlier, draw on a line of credit proactively, or delay a discretionary expense.
Planning for a slow season. Many service businesses have predictable slow periods — summer, holidays, post-January. Enter your reduced income projections for those weeks and see exactly how much runway you have before things get tight.
Evaluating a new hire. Adding a part-time employee changes your weekly cash out. Before you commit, add an additional payroll line and see how it affects your 90-day picture.
Retail and product businesses
Product businesses face a different challenge: inventory. You often have to pay for goods weeks before you sell them (and in large quantities), which creates a cash lag that can be brutal if you're growing fast.
Use the one-time expense feature to enter large inventory purchases on the date you'll actually pay, and project your sales income realistically. The dashboard will show you whether your collections keep pace with your outlays, or whether you need to make some adjustments.
Restaurants and hospitality
Revenue in food service is often predictable by day of week, but labor costs, food costs, and lease payments don't flex much. Enter your average weekly revenue, your fixed costs, and any upcoming large purchases (equipment repair, a bulk order before a busy season) and you'll have a working model of your cash position through the quarter.
What about personal cash flow?
Cash flow forecasting isn't just for businesses. The same logic applies to anyone living on variable income or managing a household through a transition.
Scenario: You're changing jobs and there will be a gap of three weeks between your last paycheck from your old employer and your first check from the new one. Meanwhile, rent is due, and you have a car insurance payment hitting mid-month.
Enter your current savings as the starting balance. Add your final paychecks according to your pay schedule. Add your fixed expenses — rent, utilities, insurance, groceries as a weekly estimate — and the tool will show you exactly how low your balance will get and when. That number tells you whether you need to dip into savings, ask for a start-date adjustment, or cut discretionary spending for a few weeks.
Other personal finance scenarios where this helps:
Saving for a big purchase. Set a goal amount and work backward — how many weeks of surplus do you need to get there? Or add an expense line “savings transfer” to help predict how much you can realistically put into savings each week.
Managing irregular income. Gig workers, commissioned salespeople, and seasonal workers can model their income pattern and see whether they're building a buffer or slowly draining one.
Navigating a major life expense. A move, a medical bill, a wedding. Enter the cost on the date it'll hit and see what your finances look like on either side of it.
How to get the most out of it
A few tips from the bookkeeping side:
Be conservative on income. It's tempting to enter your best-case revenue. Enter your realistic or slightly-pessimistic estimate instead. A forecast that surprises you on the upside is much better than one that surprises you on the downside.
Update it regularly. The tool auto-saves your data in your browser. Make it a habit to open it once a week, update any actuals in the weekly detail table, and look at the next four to six weeks. Pair it with your monthly close routine.
Use the one-time expense feature liberally. Annual subscriptions, quarterly taxes, insurance renewals — anything you know is coming should be in there. The tool is only as useful as the information you give it.
Pay attention to the red weeks. The dashboard flags any week where your projected balance goes negative. Don't ignore those weeks. Use them as a prompt to look at what's driving the shortfall and whether there's anything you can move or accelerate.
Saving and reopening your forecast
Your forecast auto-saves in your browser as you work, so if you close the tab and come back on the same device and browser, your data will still be there. But browser storage can be cleared, so it's a good habit to save a backup file periodically.
To save your forecast as a file, click the ⬇ Save File button in the top right corner of the tool. This downloads a small .json file to your computer. Give it a descriptive name and save it somewhere you'll find it. A folder called "Cash Flow" in your documents works great.
To reload it later, click ⬆ Open File and select your saved file. The tool will restore everything exactly as you left it — your starting balance, all your income and expense lines, any weekly overrides, and your forecast period.
A few good habits:
Save a file after any major update — when you add a new expense category, after a reconciliation, or at the end of each month.
Keep a dated archive if you want to look back. Rename files like cash-flow-june-2025.json before saving a new version so you can track how your projections changed over time.
If you switch computers, just email yourself the .json file and open it from the new device. The tool works the same in any browser.
Want to give it a shot?
Your next 90 days are already taking shape whether you track them or not. Use the Cash Flow Forecast tool and see where you actually stand.
And if you want a bookkeeper in your corner to help you act on what you find, we'd love to hear from you!
