The Cash-Flow Reality Check
This is everything the tool produces, on one set of numbers. Nothing is held back and nothing is summarized. If you want to know whether it is worth your time, read this instead of taking our word for it.
A two-truck shop. Thirteen weeks. The owner took on a larger job than usual in week four, paid for the materials and the crew up front, and gets paid for it in week eleven.
| Input | Value | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Cash in the bank today | $16,000 | — |
| The floor they never want to go below | $7,000 | — |
| Payroll, per run | $9,200 | every 2 weeks |
| Owner's draw | $6,000 | monthly |
| Suppliers and materials, typical week | $4,200 | weekly |
| The big job's extra materials, weeks 4–10 | +$1,300 | weekly, for 7 weeks |
| Everything else — insurance, fuel, phone, software | $1,900 | weekly |
| Money coming in | see below | entered week by week |
Payroll runs every two weeks and the draw comes out monthly, so most weeks are quiet and a few are expensive. That is what puts the teeth in the curve below — and it is why a monthly average would have hidden all of this.
| Week | Money in | Money out | Balance at the end |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today | — | — | $16,000 |
| 1 | $13,400 | $6,100 | $23,300 |
| 2 | $13,400 | $15,300 | $21,400 |
| 3 | $12,900 | $6,100 | $28,200 |
| 4 | $11,900 | $22,600 | $17,500 |
| 5 | $10,900 | $7,400 | $21,000 |
| 6 | $10,400 | $16,600 | $14,800 |
| 7 | $9,900 | $7,400 | $17,300 |
| 8 | $9,900 | $16,600 | $10,600 |
| 9 | $10,400 | $13,400 | $7,600 |
| 10 | $10,900 | $16,600 | $1,900 |
| 11 | $22,000 | $6,100 | $17,800 |
| 12 | $13,000 | $15,300 | $15,500 |
| 13 | $11,500 | $12,100 | $14,900 |
Started at $16,000. Finished at $14,900.
In week 10 the balance touched $1,900, which is $5,100 below the floor they set.
Nothing on the bank statement at the start or the end of the quarter would have told them that.
Word for word, the three lines the tool puts under the curve for anyone, without paying:
You told me your plan is: "We took on a bigger job than usual and it pays in week eleven". The curve crosses your line: week 10 drops to $1,900, below the floor you set.
This isn't a distant projection problem — it's a specific week you can see coming.
The good news: you can see it now, while there's still time to change it.
Below is exactly what a member sees on these numbers. Seven reads fired, in the order the tool ranked them. Nothing has been tidied, shortened or reordered.
The free curve runs on the numbers. The read needs a little more, and the asking is half the point — most owners have never been asked these. Here is what our made-up shop answered.
| The question | Their answer |
|---|---|
| Your biggest customer is what share of collections? | 45% |
| Does a big customer routinely pay you late? | Yes |
| Where does your cash-sales number come from? | A rough guess |
| Is "suppliers & materials" a variable cost (scales with sales)? | Yes, it should scale |
| These 13 weeks are your… | Normal stretch |
Getting worse. The trend slopes down about $1,095/week. At this rate the trend line reaches your floor around week 15 — even though every week here still clears it.
The endpoints look fine. The middle doesn't.
Your cash ended $1,100 lower than it started. Check today against thirteen weeks ago and you'd call that steady, and you'd be wrong. In week 10 you're at $1,900 — $5,100 under your floor. The endpoints don't tell the story. The journey does.
The moveStop managing cash by the bank-balance snapshot. Watch the low point, not the endpoints. "Now versus then" is two dots — the week that ends you lives on the line between them, and week 10 is that week.
Your floor can't cover your biggest bill
You can't hold a floor of $7,000 when one payroll run is $9,200. One slow week of collections and the floor is already gone.
The moveSize the floor to your biggest hit — at least one payroll, ideally 1.5–2×. A floor that can't cover payroll isn't a floor.
Your draw is on a schedule your cash isn't
You take $6,000 a month, and that is the right way to do it. But the draw in week 9 came out a week before your thinnest week, and week 10 landed $5,100 below your floor. The money was already spoken for; the calendar just didn't know it.
The moveMove the draw to quarterly until the low point clears your floor. It is the one large payment you control by yourself, today, without asking anybody. Take it after the money is in the bank, not before. Then put the difference somewhere you have to make a decision to get it back.
Your variable cost actually varies — good
Suppliers & materials moves with your weeks now instead of sitting on a plug. That's honest cost behavior — and it's what makes the common-size read below worth trusting.
The moveKeep it tied to sales. When collections dip, this should dip with them.
Materiality, not materials
Over these thirteen weeks, suppliers & materials is $63,700 — 39% of everything going out, and 40% of everything coming in. That is your single biggest piece of leverage, and it is the one most owners never touch. Cost certainty comes from knowing your material costs cold, and I mean materiality, not materials.
The moveWork that line, don't just pay it. Treat it as an open negotiation — price, terms, lead times, reliability — and treat it that way permanently, not once when you signed up. A few points on 39% of your spend beats a month of cutting small things.
The direction is down — a slow bleed
The lowest week doesn't tell you if you're in trouble — the direction does. Your cash is drifting down about $1,095 a week. That's a slow bleed, and you catch it now while there's still room.
The moveManage the slope, not the low point. A downward drift means a structural leak — costs creeping, margin slipping, or draws too high. At this rate the trend line reaches your floor around week 15 — even though every week here still clears it.
This forecast is a bet on one customer
If one customer is 45% of your collections, this whole 13 weeks is really a bet on them not slowing down. That's not a forecast — it's a single point of failure with a smile on it.
The moveWiden the base. Run the numbers again assuming that customer pays 30 days late — and start the work of not needing them this much. (This is the Concentration Risk check.)
Every line totaled across 13 weeks, and — the part owners skip — each one as a share of the cash that came in. The big percentages are where your leverage is.
| Line | 13-week total | % of cash in |
|---|---|---|
| Opening cash (today) | $16,000 | — |
| Cash in (collections + cash sales) | $160,500 | 100% |
| Payroll | -$55,200 | 34% |
| Suppliers & materials | -$63,700 | 40% |
| Owner's draw | -$18,000 | 11% |
| Everything else | -$24,700 | 15% |
| Net change in cash | -$1,100 | -1% |
| Ending cash (week 13) | $14,900 | — |
Opening $16,000 plus the net change of -$1,100 lands at $14,900. The statement ties — the picture is internally honest.
One thing the read doesn't say, and why. Payroll is $55,200 over the quarter and it is never offered as a place to cut. That is deliberate, and it is ours, not the tool's: payroll isn't a negotiation, it's people, and a read that tells you to squeeze it is a read that hands you advice you shouldn't take.
Every read, every question, every figure and every move above is what the tool actually produces on these numbers — transcribed from a real run, not written for this page. Seven reads fired and all seven are shown. The only words on this page that are ours and not the tool's are the framing, and the note about payroll just above.
The free half draws the curve on your numbers and tells you where the thin week is. The membership adds the read you just finished reading — the five questions it asks you, which costs are your leverage, the whole quarter as a statement, and your moves in order — and it refreshes every time your numbers change.
Run it on your own numbers — free
Your numbers never leave the page — nothing is sent anywhere, and we couldn't see them if we tried. Your figures are gone when you close the tab.