How to Build a 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast in Los Angeles, CA

Direct answer: Build a 13-week cash flow forecast by putting only dated, evidence-based cash movements on a calendar: opening bank, collections you can defend, payroll on pay day, and bills you have already committed to. Then update it. A static 13-week file is a homework assignment. A rolling one is how you run a Los Angeles company.

Step 1 — Reconcile opening cash

Not “about $80k.” The number after outstanding checks and pending card batches. If two accounts exist, pick the operating account and stop commingling in the model.

Step 2 — Collections that match behavior

Pull aging. For each large customer, use their last 90 days of payment speed. Put “net 30” in a footnote if you must, not in week 4 as if it were a promise. For consumer work, use your actual average days to collect, not the invoice date.

Step 3 — Payroll is a spike, not a monthly average

Place gross payroll plus employer burden on the weeks you actually pay. California estimates and workers’ compensation drafts belong on their real dates. Averaging payroll into “$X per month” is how forecasts miss the week that hurts.

Step 4 — Known bills and job commitments

Rent, insurance, software, loan payments, and costs you have already committed to. If you have not committed, it is optional — and optional spend should be turned off in the downside case.

Step 5 — Draw a red line

Minimum operating cash. Below it, no new hires, no equipment, no owner extras. This is the number banks understand and owners avoid writing down. Write it down.

Step 6 — Two scenarios

Base case: honest collections. Downside: your two slowest payers slip another two weeks. If downside breaks payroll, you have a collections and pricing problem, not a “marketing” problem.

Step 7 — Review on a standing day

Same day every week or every other week. Change the forecast. Change one operating action. That is the loop.

Try the 13-week cash flow runway and burn rate simulator (numbers stay in your browser). Try the 13-week cash flow runway and burn rate simulator (numbers stay in your browser). We run this as a service for Los Angeles firms. If you want the first model built from a cleaned baseline, book a strategy session. Bring last month’s P&L, a bank rec, and aging. We will tell you in the first meeting whether the hole is timing, margin, or both.