An Excel (XLSX) 12-month cash flow forecast for freelancers and small businesses. Start from your bank balance today, list the money you expect to receive and to pay (recurring or one-off), set aside a tax reserve with a percentage you choose, and read the month-by-month result. It flags the month with the lowest balance, warns when you fall below a minimum you set, shows your runway in months and compares a base, a cautious and an optimistic scenario with your own percentages. One download holds five complete editions (English, Italian, Spanish, French and German), each with a blank and a demo workbook with fictional data. A planning sheet, not accounting or tax advice.

The problem it solves

Profit on paper does not pay the bills. Quarterly invoices, a yearly insurance, a tax payment or a quiet month can leave the account short, and it is hard to see it coming from a list of invoices and a bank balance.

Who it is for

Freelancers, consultants, sole traders, small shops, studios and side-business owners who want to look ahead at their cash in a simple desktop Excel sheet, in their own language.

What you get

• See 12 months of cash in, cash out and balance in one view, starting from your real bank balance
• Enter recurring lines (every 1 to 12 months, with optional start and end dates) and one-off amounts with a single date: 24 cash-in lines and 28 cash-out lines
• Mark each cost as Fixed, Variable or Paid from reserve, and set aside a tax reserve with a percentage you choose; the available balance is the bank balance minus the reserve
• Compare a base, a cautious and an optimistic scenario at the same time, with your own percentage changes to cash in, fixed costs and variable costs
• A Summary sheet shows an alert, the lowest balance and its month, the months below your minimum, the runway in months and two charts
• Status flags and a data check point to rows to fix, such as an invalid date, a missing amount or a date outside the 12 months

How you use it

1. Download and unzip the file, then open the folder of the language you want.
2. Open the DEMO workbook in desktop Excel and read the Guide sheet to see how it works.
3. Open BLANK and save your own working copy; keep the supplied original as a master.
4. On Setup, type the first month, your opening bank balance, the minimum balance you want to keep, your tax-reserve percentage and the scenario changes (amber cells).
5. On Cash In and Cash Out, list your recurring lines and one-off amounts and pick a type for each cost.
6. Read Forecast, Scenarios and Summary, which update by themselves, and save dated copies as backups.

Questions