13-week cash flow template, with our Monday bank check built in

What's in the 13-week cash flow forecast template

One Excel file, two tabs. The first, 13-Week Forecast, has a column for each week and these rows:

• Week 1 starts on (a Monday). Type one date, and the other 12 weeks date themselves.
• Starting cash. Week 1 is today's bank balance. Every later week starts with the week before's ending cash.
• Cash in. Pay apps collected (in the week the money lands), retainage released, and deposits and other money in.
• Cash out. Payroll with payroll taxes, materials and suppliers, subcontractors, equipment and rentals, rent, insurance and overhead, loan and line-of-credit payments, taxes, and other money out.
• Net cash flow and ending cash. Ending cash turns red in any week it drops below zero.
• Line of credit still available, and ending cash plus that credit.
• The Monday check. Your actual bank balance each Monday, and the difference from that week's starting cash.

The second tab, How to use it, gives the steps below in six short lines. Yellow cells are yours to fill in; everything else adds up on its own.

In the sample, week 6 ends $38,000 short, and the pay apps that would cover it land in week 7. Payroll in week 6 doesn't wait.

Picture next Monday: you see that week five weeks early, chase the late pay app, and payroll clears.

How to fill in the 13-week cash flow template

To build a 13-week cash flow forecast for a construction company, start from today's bank balance, then put every pay app, retainage release, payroll and bill in the week the cash actually moves. In order:

1. Put this Monday's date in the yellow cell at the top. The other weeks fill in from it.
2. Enter today's bank balance as week 1's starting cash.
3. Enter each pay app in the week you expect the money to land, not the week you bill it. On the AIA's pay application form (G702), the architect certifies to the owner what's due, and can certify a different amount than you applied for. So the money comes after the bill, and it may not be the amount you asked for.
4. Enter retainage in the week you expect it released, not the week the job ends. Your pay app shows how much is being held.
5. Enter payroll in every week it runs. Put payroll tax deposits in the week the money leaves your bank. Federal deposits generally follow a monthly or a semiweekly schedule, set by how much tax you reported in a lookback period, not by how often you pay your crew (IRS Topic 757).
6. Then suppliers, subs, equipment, rent and overhead, loan payments and other taxes, each in the week it's due.
7. Read the Ending cash row. The first week that turns red is the week to work on now: chase a pay app, move a purchase, or talk to the bank early.
8. Every Monday, enter the actual bank balance under The Monday check. The difference shows which customers pay late and which costs run high. Then roll the forecast forward a week.

The template has those rows laid out and the math built in. Get it free:

The download page opens as soon as you send it.

Why 13 weeks

Thirteen weeks is a quarter of a year. It's long enough to see the pay app that lands in week 7 and the payroll in week 6 that can't wait for it, and short enough to forecast each week on its own instead of guessing at a month.

It rolls. Each Monday the week just finished drops off, a new week 13 goes on, and you're still looking 13 weeks out.

The slip to watch in a first forecast

A pay app entered in the week you bill it, not the week it's paid. The sheet looks fine, and the short week hides behind it.

The fix is one question per pay app: when did this customer actually pay the last one? Use how long that took, not the date on the invoice.

Your forecast and your WIP schedule answer different questions

The forecast tells you when cash runs short. Your WIP schedule tells you which jobs are over or under billed. Put them side by side to see whether a short week traces back to one job.

An under-billed job is work you've done and haven't billed: cash you're waiting on. An over-billed job is cash in your bank that the job still owes in work, and CFMA warns against treating it as profit. That's how the books can show a profit while the bank runs dry.

If you'd rather not keep it yourself

After the review, if you'd rather hand the forecast off, this is what it costs.

On the Controller plan, $3,250 a month, we keep the forecast and check it against your bank every Monday, with profit by job and a WIP schedule each month.

3 founding spots on the Controller plan: $1,750 a month for your first 90 days, in exchange for a written case study about your numbers. Then $3,250 a month, the plan's full price. Once the three spots are taken, the plan is $3,250 from the start. Month to month after your first 90 days. Stop any month.

A year of the plan is $39,000. The national median wage for financial managers, the group controllers belong to, was $166,570 in May 2025, before benefits and payroll taxes.

The CFO plan adds bank and surety reporting and cash planning for the big decisions. Both sit on top of our construction accounting services: books closed by the 10th, our standard, with every account reconciled. Every plan and price is on one page.