Cash Flow Calendar - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Chw1tt · 02-04-2009, 02:17 AM

Here is my most useful form. Although Quicken and Quickbooks have cash flow management tools, this simple excel sheet is easier to use and doesn't have to be accurate to the penny (you can use estimates of anticipated payments to be received or amounts to be paid). Enter the item in the date you expect the payment and the spreadsheet tells you what your balance will be on that day. You can see all of your money coming in and going out in one place and easily move the amounts around to make sure you maintain a positive cash flow. It helps if you know how to use excel but it is not necessary to do any programming. I inserted a password to protect the sheet "password", so you can have a chance to try it out before changing it inadvertently. There are some example entries to help you intuitively understand the spreadsheet immediately. This tool has made our lives so much simpler and even my full time bookkeeper who is a whiz at Quickbooks uses this calendar every day in our contracting business.
I included both 2003 and 2007 formats in the zipped file.
If you start using it and have questions (i.e. inserting more lines, etc.) feel free to email back and I can tell you pretty much anything you need to know!

Chw1tt · 02-27-2009, 01:11 AM

Hi Guys. If you had trouble figuring out my math, I had referenced the wrong cells for the first balance. The rest of the cells simply add to the first one.
I had rebuilt the template from scratch since I did not want to copy my own data, and I guess I messed it up. I re-worked it and attached the fixed version.

Some tips for using the calendar:

When you have moved beyond old dates, you can simply highlight the columns, right-click, and then select "hide columns" from the menu.

Today's date will always be highlighted in yellow.

The running projected daily cash balance is the bottom row of the spreadsheet.

To move an expense, or, as is common in construction, to move the final payment you are expecting to receive on a job, highlight the cell, then scroll to the edge of the cell and the cursor will turn into a 4 sided arrow. At that point you can hold the mouse button down and then move the payment forward or back in the calendar, while being careful to keep it in the correct row across.

You must update your checking/savings balance and payment info manually as you receive cash or pay your bills.

You only have to enter as much information as you need to plan as far ahead as you want. This is primarily a short term projection tool. It's easily used to plan the month ahead, or to use as a job costing calendar.

Try adding payments to the calendar to see how it affect the balance on that date and on future dates.

Let me know if this helps you. I wanted to share because as I grew my business from $600,000 in sales my first year in business (2007) to over 1.5 million dollars in sales in just my second year (2008), this tool has been my most important money management resource to keep my head above water and see where I am going to be when the next $25,000 payroll comes around, which is every two weeks.

Good luck everyone! I hope you all stay very busy!

Chris W
Keystone Kitchens