What a cash flow forecast is for
A cash flow forecast estimates how much money will come in and go out over the coming months and, from that, what the balance will be each day. Several treasury decisions rest on it:
- Funding on time. Seeing weeks ahead which dates run short lets you draw on credit lines or talk to the bank before you hit the overdraft.
- Investing surplus cash. Knowing how much is left over, and for how long, tells you what tenor you can invest at without putting payments at risk.
- Scheduling payments. Large payments can be lined up with the days cash comes in.
- Answering management and the banks. When someone asks how much cash there will be at quarter-end, there's a figure you can back up.
A forecast is only as useful as it is current, and only as credible as the source behind each number.
Why a spreadsheet forecast goes stale
In most companies each department sends its own file, treasury pulls them together by hand, and by the time it's done something has already changed: an invoice moved, a contract was signed, a customer paid late. Nobody knows for sure which figure each department entered or when they last updated it, and last week's version is lost when the file is overwritten.
FLIQO keeps every flow in one place, records who entered it and where it came from, and keeps earlier versions.
Where the flows come from
- Direct entry of expected receipts and payments, one at a time.
- Excel templates to load many flows at once, validated before they're applied.
- ERP exports read by connectors straight from the system's own report. Each flow keeps its source, and a new load replaces the previous one within its date range without erasing the history.
- Recurring receipts and payments, such as payroll, rent or utilities, which project themselves at their frequency.
- Flows from other modules: debt installments, investment maturities and transfers between accounts enter the forecast when they're recorded in their own module, so nobody keys them in twice.
Day by day, from the actual balance
The forecast starts from each account's latest observed balance and adds receipts and payments day by day out to the horizon the company sets, anywhere from one month to three years. Flows in other currencies are converted to the company's currency, and future dates use a rate derived from each currency's interest rates.
Payments that fall on a weekend or bank holiday move to the right business day under each country's calendar.
The category matrix
The matrix shows receipts and payments for each period under the company's own category tree, by day, week or month, with the balance at the end of each column. It exports to Excel and PDF.
Alongside projected cash, the matrix shows mobilizable liquidity: cash plus investments that can be redeemed and undrawn credit. A month can be short on cash and still covered by that backup; the matrix tells the two apart.
Every figure has an owner
A forecast stays current when each department answers for its own numbers. In FLIQO:
- Submission windows. Each period has an opening date and a deadline for departments to enter or update their estimates.
- Stale estimate notices. When an estimate hasn't been reviewed in a while and its payment date is getting close, FLIQO writes to its owner: the person who manages that figure in the source system, not necessarily whoever uploaded the file.
- Escalation. If the owner doesn't update it, the notice goes to the head of their area or department.
A panel shows how current each owner is and whether the reminders are working.
Automatic forecasts to fill out the horizon
Departments often estimate the next few months well and leave the end of the horizon empty, or a recurring contract ends and nobody renews it in the forecast. That gap reads as if no money will come in or go out.
FLIQO finds the categories with no estimate in part of the horizon and proposes the missing figures. Where there's an agreed recurring payment or a fixed-day pattern, like payroll on the 30th, it uses that. Otherwise it applies a statistical method to the category's actual history.
To pick the method, FLIQO tests several (historical median, last value, same period of the previous cycle, trend, and trend with seasonality) against what actually happened over the past few years, and shows which one was least wrong for each category. Treasury decides which to assign.
Proposals can be generated on demand or automatically every day, and they land in a review queue. None enters the forecast until its owner approves or corrects it.
Forecast versus actual
Movements arriving on bank statements are matched to the estimates they belong to, within date and amount tolerances the company can set by category. Variances can be annotated with their cause, so the next forecast learns from the last one.
FLIQO uses the same information to measure how accurate the forecast was.
Versions you can compare
A snapshot of the forecast is saved every day. You can open any snapshot exactly as it was, compare it with another date and overlay the actual balance to see what changed between versions.
What-if analysis without touching the data
The matrix's sensitivity mode lets you change figures, by amount or by percentage, and see the effect on the balance right away. The scenario is saved with a note explaining its assumptions and can be shared with others. The actual data doesn't change.
Ask Aria
You can ask Aria what the lowest balance over the next 90 days is and when it falls, which categories have no estimate, which estimates haven't been updated in a while and who owns them, or whether actuals are tracking the forecast this quarter. Aria answers with the same data shown on screen.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to stop using our ERP?
No. FLIQO reads the files your ERP already produces and turns them into forecast flows. The ERP remains the system where invoices and accounting are recorded.
What happens to what's already been paid?
The forecast starts from today's actual balance, which already reflects what was paid, and only adds flows from today onward. When the actual movement arrives on the statement, it's matched to its estimate so you can compare what was expected with what happened.
Can we work in several currencies?
Yes. Each flow keeps its currency and is converted to the company's currency at the rate for its date.
Who can change another department's estimate?
That depends on permissions. By default, each person edits their own; the company decides whether someone can edit what belongs to their area or department. Flows generated by a module, such as debt installments, can only be changed from that module.
Does it work for a group of companies?
Yes. Each company has its own forecast, and the group view shows each subsidiary's balance today and projected 30 days out, in the parent's currency.