Planning suite
A 13-week cash forecast from real payment habits, what-if scenarios for profit and cash, a demand plan per product, and sheets you attach for analysis.
What it is
Financial planning has three tabs, all worked out from your own books:
- Cash forecast — week by week, the cash you will have, from what customers and suppliers actually do.
- Scenarios — twelve months of profit and cash under your own what-if drivers, against the base.
- Demand plan — the next months of units and revenue for each product, from two years of sales.
Each tab can also open as a report, to print, export, schedule or pin on a dashboard. In the assistant you can attach a spreadsheet, PDF or photo and work on it the same way.
Who it is for
- Owners asking "will we have enough cash in eight weeks?"
- Accountants testing a price rise, a new hire or a loan before committing
- Buyers who need the expected demand per product
- Anyone who wants to analyse a spreadsheet with the assistant
Before you start#
- The more history in the books, the better the forecasts. The demand plan reads two years of invoiced sales, and scenarios read the last 12 months of the ledger.
- Recurring costs are learned from the ledger. If none are found yet, the forecast says so.
Step by step#
- Open Accounting › Financial planning.
- On Cash forecast, choose 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 13 weeks or 26 weeks.
- Read Cash today, the lowest point and the runway, then each week's opening, money in, money out, and closing with its low and high band.
- Open Scenarios and change a driver, for example revenue growth, a price change or a new fixed cost per month.
- Choose Save this scenario, and use Side by side to compare saved scenarios with the base.
- Choose Write this scenario into a budget and pick Budget, Reforecast, Best case or Worst case.
- Open Demand plan and choose a product row to set its reorder rule in Replenishment.
How the cash forecast is built#
Each week starts from the opening cash. Then it adds:
- invoices due, moved by each customer's own lateness
- overdue invoices, collected at your business's collection rate over four weeks
- approved sales orders not yet invoiced
And it takes off:
- bills, by each supplier's behaviour
- approved purchase orders not yet billed
- recurring costs learned from the ledger
- loan instalments
The closing figure has low and high bands. The forecast also shows the cash conversion cycle, and states every assumption it used, so you can see how each figure was reached. Once a week of forecasts has passed, it shows how accurate they were.
Scenarios#
A scenario projects 12 months of profit and cash from the last 12 months in the ledger, under 16 drivers. They include revenue growth, price, volume, cost of sales, operating costs, a new fixed cost from a month, a one-off outflow, a loan with its month, rate and term, customer and supplier payment days, and the income tax rate. It shows break-even revenue, margins, runway and lowest cash. A sensitivity view moves each driver on its own, biggest cash swing first, so you see what matters most. Up to four scenarios can be compared beside the base.
Demand plan#
For each product, the plan forecasts 3, 6 or 12 months of units and revenue from invoiced sales less returns. The method is chosen per product: Holt-Winters for a yearly season, Holt for a trend, smoothing for a flat line, and Croston for products that sell now and then. Each product shows its backtest error (WMAPE), so you know how far to trust it.
Files you attach in the assistant#
- A spreadsheet (CSV or Excel) is read in your browser and kept as a dataset. The assistant answers from it, charts or tabulates the whole file, and can import its rows. It always runs a dry run first, and imports only after you agree.
- A photo of a bill or receipt is read in the browser with text recognition. The assistant proposes the document from it and can attach the original image. It says what it could not read instead of guessing.
- A PDF is read from its text, with text recognition for scans.
Limits and what is not there yet#
- Forecasts come from your history. They are not a promise. Read the low and high bands and the stated assumptions.
- Scenarios write into a budget only when you choose to. Saving a scenario changes nothing in the books.
Questions#
How is this different from the budget?
The budget is the plan you approve, account by account. The planning suite forecasts what is likely, and can write a scenario into a budget when you decide.
Why does a customer's invoice appear a week after its due date?
The forecast moves each invoice by that customer's own payment lateness, learned from their past payments.
Can I ask the assistant about the forecast?
Yes. Ask, for example, "what is my lowest cash point in the next 13 weeks?" It reads the same forecast and quotes its assumptions.
Is there a shorter cash view?
Yes. The Cash forecast (30 / 60 / 90 days) report shows cash today plus what is due in and out, with a low and a high band.