Cash Flow Forecast Calculator Australia

A cash flow forecast is a month-by-month projection of the money expected to flow into and out of your business. Starting from your current (opening) cash balance, you add the cash you expect to receive and subtract the cash you expect to pay out each month to work out your closing balance, which becomes the opening balance for the next month. It shows whether you can cover wages, rent, the ATO and suppliers before the money actually moves.

Start with your opening cash balance (what's in the bank today). For each month, add your expected cash in (customer payments, not just invoices issued) and subtract your expected cash out (wages, rent, super, GST, supplier bills, loan repayments). The running closing balance for each month tells you when cash gets tight. This calculator does that maths for 3, 6 or 12 months, then lets you drop one-off and quarterly payments into the months they actually fall due.

Profit is income minus expenses on an accounting basis, it can include invoices you've raised but haven't been paid for. Cash flow is the actual movement of money in and out of your bank account. A profitable business can still run out of cash if customers pay slowly while wages, rent and the ATO fall due. That timing gap is exactly what a cash flow forecast is designed to expose.

A negative closing balance means your forecast cash out exceeds your opening balance plus cash in for that month, in plain terms, you're projected to run out of money. Common causes are a seasonal dip in sales, a large one-off payment (a BAS bill, super, insurance, equipment), or customers paying later than you pay your own bills. Add those lumps as one-off or quarterly payments so the month they land in is the month the forecast shows the pressure, then fix it by bringing cash in forward or pushing non-urgent cash out back.

Most small businesses review their forecast monthly and refresh it whenever something material changes, winning or losing a big job, a price rise, hiring, or a tax bill landing. Treat it as a rolling document: each month, replace your forecast figure with what actually happened and roll a new month onto the end. A forecast is only useful while it reflects reality.

Yes. GST you collect on sales is your cash in the short term, but you hand it to the ATO at BAS time, so it's cash out later, and many businesses are caught short by quarterly GST and PAYG instalments. Add your expected BAS payment as a quarterly payment in the month it is actually paid, not the month it is incurred. Quarterly BAS is generally due on the 28th of the month after the quarter ends (28 October, 28 February, 28 April, 28 July), so the payment usually lands in the month after quarter end.

It is a planning tool, not a prediction. The maths itself is exact, but it inherits whatever you type: a flat monthly average repeated across every month, plus any one-off or quarterly payments you add. It does not know your seasonality, your debtor days, or that a customer will pay late. Real cash flow is lumpier than any average, so treat the shortfall month as the earliest warning you should act on rather than a date. The way to make it honest is to enter a conservative cash-in figure and a generous cash-out figure, then check the forecast against what actually happened each month.

Because an average spreads a lump across every month. If your BAS is about $9,000 a quarter and you fold it into your monthly cash out as $3,000, every month looks $3,000 worse and the quarter-end month looks $6,000 better than it will be. That is the month you actually run short. Keep your average cash out for the recurring costs, then add the BAS as a quarterly payment in the month it leaves the bank, so the spike shows up where it happens.

Cash runway is how long your current cash lasts at your current burn rate: opening balance divided by net monthly cash out, when you are spending more than you receive. On a $20,000 balance with $4,000 a month going out net, that is five months. This calculator shows the runway figure alongside the forecast. Read it as a smooth estimate, because the forecast table below it accounts for the one-off and quarterly payments the flat burn rate cannot see, and it will usually run out sooner.

A 13-week forecast is the short-horizon format lenders, accountants and insolvency advisers ask for: one quarter, laid out week by week, so payroll runs and tax payments land on the exact week they clear. This calculator projects in calendar months rather than weeks, which is the right resolution for a 3 to 12 month view. Use the weekly column in the cash-flow-by-period table to size a week, and if you need the real week-by-week version, build it on a spreadsheet with your actual payment dates.

The per-period table converts one monthly figure into the other cycles through the year: annual is monthly times 12, weekly is annual divided by 52, and fortnightly is annual divided by 26. A calendar year is 365.25 days, or about 52.18 weeks, so the weekly figure times 52 does not land exactly on the annual figure, and roughly every seventh year you will see 53 weekly payments or 27 fortnightly ones. Those columns are there to size a burn rate, not to schedule a payment run.

Yes. Use the one-off and quarterly payments panel: enter the amount, pick the month it lands in, and choose whether it is money out (a BAS bill, insurance, a van, an annual software renewal) or money in (a deposit, a tax refund, a loan drawdown), and whether it happens once or every quarter. A seasonal dip is modelled as a one-off money-in entry of the shortfall in the quiet month. Everything else stays on your flat monthly average, which is what keeps the forecast readable.