Charity cashflow forecast
A cashflow forecast you never have to rebuild
Opening balance, plus what comes in, less what goes out, month by month to the year end - the sheet every treasurer draws by hand. The difference is that this one fills in the finished months from what you have recorded, so it is a little more right every week instead of a little more wrong.
Free for 30 days, no card needed. Then £5 a month or £50 a year, everything included.
Why the spreadsheet forecast stops being trusted
It is rarely the sums. It is that the forecast is a snapshot, and a charity's money keeps moving after the snapshot was taken.
- It is rebuilt every year. The forecast is a spreadsheet somebody draws up before the budget meeting, trusts for a fortnight, and never updates because updating it means retyping half of it.
- An annual figure divided by twelve is wrong ten months out of twelve. Insurance falls in one month, the utilities quarterly, the independent examiner once. Spread evenly, the forecast looks smooth right up to the month it does not.
- A bill entered is not a bill paid. Count it the day it arrives and the balance looks worse than it is; forget it and the balance looks better. Either way the committee stops believing the figure.
- A healthy balance can be mostly somebody else's money. Restricted grants sit in the same account as everything else, so a comfortable total can hide a month where the money you are free to spend is gone.
How this forecast is different
It is built from the same rules a careful treasurer follows by hand. The software just never forgets one.
The finished months are not forecasts
Every month that has ended shows what really happened: money that reached the bank and bills marked paid. Only the months still ahead come from the budget, and every figure is marked actual or plan.
It updates when you record a payment
Nobody retypes a cell. Enter a payment in or out in the ordinary way and the forecast moves with it, all the way to the year end.
Each budget line falls in the right months
The insurance in April, the quarterly bills in their quarters, the salary every month. Tick the months a line falls in and the forecast spreads it there and nowhere else.
It names the month it goes wrong
If the money carried forward drops below nothing at any point in the year, the page says so in plain words at the top - the month, not just a red number - while there is time to do something about it.
Restricted money shown beside the balance
The restricted total sits next to the closing balance, so nobody reads a bank account full of a funder's money as money the trustees can spend on anything.
Spending nobody budgeted for still counts
A payment that matches no budget line appears on its own row rather than vanishing, so the closing balance is right even when the budget missed something.
Printed for the meeting
A clean printed copy of the forecast to go out with the committee papers, so the people who will not sign in still see the same figures.
What it costs
£5 a month, or £50 a year
One price with everything in it: the money, the forecast, the trustees, the meetings, the compliance records, the grants and the GDPR records. No charge per trustee, and the charity is billed rather than whoever signed up, so the subscription stays put when the committee changes.
Questions people ask
What does a cashflow forecast need before it works?
Two things: a budget for the year, and what was in the bank on a particular day, taken from a statement. Until you give it a bank balance it counts from nought and says so on the page, rather than letting a committee believe it is heading for an overdraft it is nowhere near.
How is this different from the budget?
The budget says how much you expect over the year. The forecast says when, month by month, and what that leaves in the bank at the end of each month. As months finish it stops guessing and shows what actually happened.
Why does the month we are in count as plan?
Because half a month of money in, set against a whole month of budget, reads as a collapse in income. The month becomes actual once it is over.
Our financial year ends in March. Does that matter?
No. You tell it when your year ends - March, December or any other month - and the forecast runs from the start of your year to the end of it.
Our first budget will be a guess. Is that a problem?
No. Last year's figures plus a sensible guess is enough to make the forecast useful, and you can change any line at any time. The months that have finished correct themselves from what you record.
Can the other trustees see it?
Yes. Every trustee can look at the forecast; only the people you give a money role to can change the figures behind it.
See your own year before you pay anything
Start free, put in what is in the bank and a first budget, and look at the forecast in an afternoon.