What is a 13-week cash flow forecast?

A 13-week cash flow forecast maps every expected cash inflow and outflow — pay app collections, payroll, vendor payments, LOC draws and payments — week by week for the next 13 weeks. It shows your projected cash balance at the end of each week so problems are visible 8 weeks before they hit the bank account instead of on Friday morning.

Who is the Cash Flow Intervention for?

The Cash Flow Intervention is for contractors already in a cash crisis — payroll is stressful, the LOC is maxed or close to it, AR is aging, and the bank balance is unpredictable week to week. It is a triage session, not an ongoing engagement. The goal is to identify the fastest path to cash stability and give you a prioritized action list you can execute immediately.

Do I need to be a CFOS client to use these tools?

No. These tools are available to any commercial subcontractor regardless of whether you are a CFOS client. The spreadsheet and done-with-you session are standalone products. If you go through the intervention and decide you want ongoing support, a CFOS engagement is available — but there is no obligation.

13-WEEK CASH FLOW FORECAST · COMMERCIAL SUBCONTRACTORS $1M–$12M

SEE YOUR CASH 13 WEEKS OUT.

WHAT THIS IS

A pre-built Excel spreadsheet that shows commercial subcontractors their projected cash position week by week for the next 13 weeks. Enter your active projects, pay app schedule, payroll cycle, vendor payments, and line of credit balance; the forecast does the rest. Instant download. Update it monthly in under an hour.

Most subcontractors manage cash by watching the bank balance. That works until it does not, and when it stops working it usually stops on a Thursday night before a $47K payroll Friday. A 13-week forecast puts you 8 weeks ahead of that moment: enough time to push a pay app, slow a vendor payment, or draw the line of credit on your terms instead of the bank's. This spreadsheet exists because most contractors have never had a forecast built for how their business actually gets paid.

TAB 01

13-Week Cash Flow Forecast

The core tab. Every week for the next 13: pay apps coming in, payroll and vendor payments going out, LOC draws and paydowns, and your projected ending cash. Short weeks show up on the screen 8 weeks before they show up at the bank.

TAB 02

Overhead Calculator

Your real monthly burn: every dollar the business spends whether jobs are running or not. This number drives the entire forecast, and most owners have never actually calculated it. Fill it in once, adjust as things change.

TAB 03

24-Month Forecast

The long view. Revenue, overhead, and cash by month for the next two years, so hiring, equipment purchases, and growth decisions stop being gut calls made in a good month and regretted in a bad one.

WHY IT WORKS

Built for Subcontractors

Not a generic small-business template. Built around how commercial subs actually get paid: pay apps, retainage, pay-when-paid terms, and payroll that hits every week whether the GC has paid you or not.

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HOW IT WORKS

DOWNLOAD IT TODAY. KNOW YOUR POSITION BY FRIDAY.

01

Download and Open

Instant download after checkout. Open it in Excel. Every tab is labeled and every input cell is marked, so you know exactly what goes where.

02

Enter Your Numbers

Active projects, pay app dates, payroll cycle, vendor payments, and your LOC balance. Plan on an afternoon for the first pass. No accounting background required.

03

Update Monthly

Once it's built, updates take under an hour a month. Every update rolls the window forward, so you are always looking 13 weeks ahead instead of one Friday at a time.

WHO THIS IS FOR

THIS IS BUILT FOR YOU IF

You run a commercial subcontracting business between $1M and $12M in revenue
You bill through pay apps and wait on GCs to release money
You have caught yourself checking the bank balance before approving payroll
Your line of credit has quietly become part of how you fund jobs
You are profitable on paper but the cash never seems to match

SKIP IT IF

You do residential work billed at completion, not through pay apps
You want software that syncs automatically; this is a working spreadsheet, not an app
You will not commit an hour a month to keeping it current
You already run a 13-week forecast you trust

A forecast only works if it gets updated. The contractors who get the most out of this treat the monthly update like a pay app deadline: it happens on a set day, every month, no exceptions.

QUESTIONS CONTRACTORS ASK

Yes, if you bill commercial work through pay apps. It was built for commercial subcontractors: civil, concrete, electrical, SWPPP, underground utility, sitework, masonry, and trades like them. The structure handles retainage, pay-when-paid terms, and weekly payroll, which is what makes generic small-business cash flow templates useless for subs.

QuickBooks tells you what already happened. This tells you what is about to happen. A cash flow statement is the rearview mirror; a 13-week forecast is the windshield. When a short week is coming, QuickBooks will confirm it after the fact. This shows it to you 8 weeks out, while you still have time to push a pay app or slow a vendor payment.

No. If you can read a pay app, you can run this forecast. The inputs are things you already know: what jobs are running, when you billed, when you expect to get paid, what payroll runs, and what you owe vendors. There are no journal entries, no debits and credits, and no accountant required.

Thirteen weeks is one quarter: far enough out to act on what you see, close enough in to stay accurate. And it runs weekly because your cash moves weekly. Payroll hits every Friday whether the GC paid you or not, which is why a monthly view always looks fine right up until the week it isn't.

Plan on an afternoon for the first build: entering your active projects, pay app schedule, payroll cycle, vendor payments, and LOC balance. After that, keeping it current takes under an hour a month. The overhead calculator is a one-time setup you adjust as the business changes.

There's a done-with-you version: a live working session where Josh builds the forecast with you using your actual numbers, your real projects, your real pay app dates, your real LOC terms. You walk away with a completed forecast and the monthly process to maintain it. If that sounds more like what you need, reach out at Josh@ConstructionCFO.net before buying the spreadsheet.

WHO BUILT THIS

JOSH LUEBKER · THE CONSTRUCTION CFO

Josh is a former master electrician and project manager with 150+ projects and $2.1B+ in commercial work before building The Construction CFO, a fractional CFO firm that works exclusively with commercial subcontractors. This forecast is the same structure his team uses with clients, packaged so you can run it yourself.

It was not built by an accountant guessing at how construction works. It was built by someone who sat in the GC meetings, pushed the billing, and watched good contractors get squeezed by pay-when-paid terms while payroll kept hitting every Friday.

STOP FINDING OUT ON THURSDAY NIGHT.

The download is at the top of this page. Grab it, block an afternoon, and see your next 13 weeks before they happen. And if the forecast shows you a problem you can't fix on your own, that's the work we do every day.

GET THE SPREADSHEET TALK TO US INSTEAD

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