Cash Flow Forecast Template (Excel UK) explains practical Digital Adaption support for UK SMEs, with a focus on data quality, ERP migration readiness, reporting trust, automation or delivery where it fits the page.
A cash flow forecast lists the money you expect in and out each week, then rolls the closing bank balance forward: closing balance = opening balance + money in - money out. A 13-week horizon covers a full quarter, which is far enough ahead to see a VAT bill or a quiet month coming while the numbers are still accurate enough to act on.
Free download
A free 13-week rolling cash flow forecast template in Excel, built for UK small businesses. Enter what you expect to receive and pay each week and the workbook chains your opening and closing bank balance across the quarter, flags any week that ends overdrawn in red, and adjusts for late payers with a slippage percentage. It also works in Google Sheets.
One Excel workbook: 13 weekly columns, an opening and closing balance chain, a late payer slippage input, and placeholder rows for VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax payments. Enter your details and the file downloads immediately.
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Download Excel workbookExample figures are pre-filled in weeks 1 to 3 so you can see how the balance chain and the red flag behave. Replace them with your own numbers. Assumes tax year 2026/27. Rates last checked: 15 July 2026.
A 12 month forecast is a budgeting tool. A 13-week forecast is a survival tool. Thirteen weeks is one full quarter, so it always contains at least one VAT payment, three PAYE runs and a realistic view of your sales pipeline. Beyond that horizon the numbers are guesses, and guesses hide problems. Most businesses that get into cash trouble did not lack a forecast, they lacked one short enough to be honest. This is the format lenders and turnaround advisers ask for.
List weeks across the columns and money in and money out down the rows. For each week, add total receipts to the opening bank balance and subtract total payments to get the closing balance, then carry that closing balance forward as the next week’s opening balance. This free template has the structure and formulas already built.
It is a rolling weekly forecast covering the next quarter. Each week you update actuals, drop the week just gone and add a new week at the end. It is the standard short-term cash tool used by finance teams and lenders because 13 weeks is long enough to see a VAT bill coming and short enough to stay accurate.
Decide what percentage of invoiced sales typically arrives late, then move that share of each week’s expected receipts to a later week rather than deleting it. This template has a slippage percentage input that does the move automatically, shifting the slipped cash two weeks later.
The big three are the VAT quarter (due one month and 7 days after the quarter ends), PAYE and NI (due by the 22nd of the following month), and Corporation Tax (due 9 months and 1 day after year end). The template includes placeholder rows for all three so they are never a surprise.
Yes. The workbook only uses portable functions such as SUM and ROUND, so you can upload it to Google Drive and open it in Google Sheets without anything breaking. The red negative-balance formatting carries over too.