Project your cash position month by month. Find your runway, break-even, and danger months before they arrive.
Enter your starting balance and at least one income or expense to see your forecast.
A cash flow forecast is a projection of how much money will move into and out of your business each month over a defined period — typically 3, 6, or 12 months. Unlike a profit & loss statement, it focuses purely on when cash actually arrives and leaves, which is why a business can be profitable on paper yet still run out of cash.
Building a forecast takes four inputs: your current cash on hand, your recurring income, your recurring expenses, and any known one-time items. Once these are entered, every downstream metric — runway, break-even month, net cash flow — calculates automatically.
Your starting cash balance is the amount in your business bank account today (or at the start of the forecast period). This is the baseline that every month's closing balance is built on. Include operating accounts but not credit lines or loans you haven't drawn.
List every predictable source of monthly revenue: dine-in sales, online ordering revenue, delivery commissions, catering contracts, loyalty redemption inflows, subscription fees, and so on. Be conservative — use your average over the past three months, not your best month.
Fixed expenses are the same amount every month regardless of sales volume: rent, salaried payroll, insurance premiums, loan payments, software subscriptions. Variable expenses scale with revenue: food and beverage COGS, hourly labor, packaging, payment processing fees. Separating them helps you understand which costs you can actually control when revenue dips.
One-time entries are the events that break the monthly rhythm: a new equipment purchase, a tax payment, a security deposit refund, a large catering pre-payment, or a seasonal inventory build-up. Entering them in the correct month is critical — missing a $15,000 equipment payment in month 4 can turn a comfortable runway into a crisis.
A negative closing balance means your business would run out of cash in that month. The calculator flags these months in red so you can see exactly when the problem occurs and take action before it happens.
Cash runway is how many months your current cash balance can sustain operations at the current net burn rate, assuming no revenue. It answers the question: if revenue suddenly stopped, how long could we survive?
A runway of at least 3 months is considered a minimum buffer for most SMBs. 6 months is healthy. If your runway is under 2 months, you are in a danger zone — consider cutting variable costs immediately, accelerating receivables, or securing a line of credit before you need it.
Seasonal businesses — beachside restaurants in summer, holiday retail, tax-season spas — face extreme peaks and valleys that destroy many owners who treat every month as if it were average. Key strategies:
| Business Type | Avg. Monthly Revenue | Avg. Fixed Cost Ratio | Recommended Runway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick-service restaurant (single location) | $40,000 – $120,000 | 25 – 35% | 3 – 4 months |
| Full-service restaurant | $80,000 – $300,000 | 30 – 40% | 4 – 6 months |
| Retail store | $20,000 – $150,000 | 35 – 50% | 3 – 6 months |
| Beauty salon / Nail spa | $15,000 – $80,000 | 20 – 30% | 2 – 4 months |
| Food truck | $10,000 – $40,000 | 15 – 25% | 2 – 3 months |
The fastest lever most SMBs overlook is payment technology. Every percentage point you pay in processing fees compounds across every transaction. A restaurant doing $80,000/month at a 2.9% blended rate pays $2,320/month in processing — switching to a processor-agnostic system like KwickOS and negotiating your own rate to 2.0% saves $720/month, or $8,640/year. Over 12 months, that is almost a full month of extra runway at no cost.
Other technology-driven cash flow improvements: