Cash flow

The Cash flow view spreads the job across the programme, so you can see what money is needed when — and when it comes back in — rather than only what the job costs in total.

Money in against money out, across the life of the job.

Three sections

Section	Shows
Expenses	What the job costs, over time
Income	What you expect to claim, from the contract stages
Net Cash Position	The two combined — the line that matters

All three sit on the same period columns, so a month’s outgoings line up with that month’s income and the net figure underneath.

The net line is the one to read. Expenses alone tell you what the job costs; the net position tells you how much of your own money is in it at any point, which is the number that decides whether you can take on the next job.

Where the expense figures come from

Expenses come from the orders and invoices already on the job.

Input	From
When the cost happens	Task dates in the schedule
How much	The task’s cost, or its linked order
When it is paid	Payment Method and Payment Extra days

The third is the one people skip, and it is what separates a cost curve from a cash curve. Work done in week 6 on 30-day terms is paid in week 10, and the gap is exactly what you have to fund.

Where the income figures come from

Income comes from the contract stages and what you have claimed.

Income is built from the project’s contract stages — each stage’s value, on its expected date.

Two things sharpen it:

A stage linked to a schedule task takes its date from that task. Link the lock-up stage to the lock-up task and the income moves whenever the programme moves, instead of sitting on a date somebody typed in March.

A linked stage is only “ready” once its task is 100% complete. So the view can distinguish income you can actually claim now from income that is still ahead of the work. Stages with no linked task are always treated as ready, since there is nothing to wait on.

Cash flow does not raise claims

It projects income; it does not create anything. Progress claims stay entirely manual — see Raising a claim. A stage showing as ready here is a prompt to go and raise the claim, not a sign that one exists.

Making it worth looking at

Terms are what move money from when it is owed to when it arrives.

The view is only as good as the tasks behind it. Three things:

Link orders to tasks. A task costed from its order carries a real committed figure. One with a typed estimate carries a guess. See Resources and cost.

Set payment terms. Without them, everything appears to be paid the day the work happens, which no builder has ever experienced.

Keep dates current. A schedule three weeks out of date produces a cash flow three weeks out of date, and it will look plausible.

Link contract stages to schedule tasks. This is what makes the income side honest. An unlinked stage sits on whatever date was typed when the contract was set up; a linked one moves with the programme, so when the frame slips a fortnight the frame claim slips with it and the net position updates itself. See Contract stages.

Reading it

The peak is the most cash the job needs at once. That is the number that decides whether you can take the job on, and it is rarely at the end.

The steep sections are where several expensive trades coincide. Worth knowing about in advance, and sometimes worth re-sequencing to smooth.

The net position is the real question, and the view works it out for you. A job that pays at lock-up but has its biggest outflow in the fortnight before is asking you to fund a gap — which is fine if you know, and a problem if you find out in the fortnight.

The S-Curve

The table shows what moves each month. S-Curve shows where the job is up to — both sides added up as the job runs, drawn as two lines:

• Money out, GST included, so it compares like with like against what you claim.
• Money in, from the contract stages.

It is called an S-curve because that is the shape spend makes on a job that starts slowly, runs hard through the middle, and tails off at the end.

The gap between the two lines is your money in the job. Where the money-out line sits above the money-in line, you are paying out ahead of being paid, and the vertical distance is how much of your own cash is in it at that point. A dotted today line shows where you are now.

It follows whatever the page is set to, so switching between Weekly and Monthly, or filtering to one stage, redraws it. Hover any point for that period’s three figures, Show the numbers puts the same thing in a table, and Export to Excel downloads it.

Worked example

The Hendricks extension, month by month — this is the shape the three sections show:

Month	Outgoing	Claim due	Stage
Oct	$18,400	$11,069	Deposit
Nov	$34,900	$22,138	Base
Dec	$28,600	$33,207	Frame
Jan	$12,200	—	—
Feb	$41,300	$77,483	Lock-up
Mar	$38,700	$55,345	Fixing
Apr	$17,500	$22,138	Completion

November is the pinch. $34,900 going out against $22,138 coming in, on top of October’s shortfall — so roughly $20,000 of the builder’s own money is in the job before the frame claim lands in December.

January is the opposite: little happening, nothing to claim. Worth knowing before committing to anything else that month.

None of that is visible from the contract total. It is only visible from the shape.

Reducing the peak

Three levers, in order of how often they work:

1. Claim promptly. A claim raised the day a stage is reached rather than a fortnight later moves the whole income side left. Cheapest fix available.
2. Negotiate supplier terms. Moving a large trade from 14 days to 30 shifts a significant outflow past a claim.
3. Re-sequence. Sometimes expensive trades can be separated so they do not coincide. Constrained by the critical path, and worth checking on the Gantt before assuming it is possible.

Across several jobs

The peak that matters is not any one job’s — it is the sum across every job running at once.

Two jobs whose expensive months coincide can create a peak neither shows on its own. If you are deciding when to start the next job, checking that overlap is worth more than almost any other planning you can do.

All jobs

At the top left of the Cash flow tab, This job and All jobs switch between the job that is open and every job added together: the cash flow of the business. You do not need a job open to use All jobs.

The sheet has three parts, on the same week or month columns:

Part	Shows
Money in	One row per job: its contract stages, on their expected dates
Money out	One row per job: its scheduled task costs, on the dates they are due to be paid
What is left	Money in minus money out for each week or month, then the running total

Every figure includes GST, so money in and money out are on the same footing. A job’s row equals the Total income and Total expenses (Inc GST) rows on that job’s own cash flow. Click the job’s name to open it.

Choosing what to count

• Weekly and Monthly set the width of a column.
• Show sets how far ahead the sheet runs, starting from this week or month: 3, 6 or 12 months, or Everything, which runs from the first dated dollar to the last.
• Jobs starts on Current jobs, which leaves out archived jobs and sales estimates (a quote you have not won is not money you can count on). You can also show all jobs, or the jobs at one status.
• The tick box on each job leaves that job out of every total. Use it when a job has two estimates and only one of them should count. The job stays listed, struck through, so you can tick it back in. Your choice is remembered on that device.

Your bank balance

Type what is in the bank into Cash at bank today. The bottom row then starts from that figure and reads as your expected bank balance at the end of each week or month. When the running total goes below zero, the top right of the page says how far and when (Lowest). That is the size of the gap to cover, and the date you need it covered by.

What the sheet tells you it left out

Under the sheet, a note lists money it could not place: amounts dated before the first column or after the last one, and amounts with no date at all (a costed task the schedule has not dated yet, or a contract stage with no expected date). Nothing is dropped silently.

What it does not know

This is a forecast built from each job’s schedule and contract stages. It does not know what has already been paid or claimed, and it does not include overheads such as wages, rent or loan repayments. Read it as “what the jobs will do to the bank account”, not as a full set of accounts.

S-Curve and Export to Excel work here the same way they do for one job.

You need the Cash Flow and See Costs permissions, and you only see the jobs you have access to.