Who owns the assumptions in your cash forecast?
The spreadsheet contains answers nobody can explain
Imagine the forecast includes a large customer receipt next Tuesday. The bookkeeper says the project manager supplied the date. The project manager says it came from an earlier conversation. Nobody knows whether accounts confirmed it.
Keep the assumption attached to the number. For a significant receipt or payment, record where the date came from, who can check it and what would cause it to change.
Choose the assumptions that drive decisions
Start with the entries that determine whether the business can meet commitments. A large disputed receipt deserves more attention than a small recurring expense with a settled amount and date.
The list can be short. The aim is not to document every cell exhaustively, but to make important uncertainty visible to the people relying on the forecast.
Record the basis in ordinary language
business.gov.au advises clearly labelling and explaining estimated figures. Write a practical note such as “customer accounts expects payment after approval; confirmation due Thursday”, and keep the relevant correspondence.
Avoid labels such as “certain” where the evidence supports only an expectation. A previous payment pattern can inform an estimate without proving that the next payment will follow it.
Name the person able to check it
Assign the next action to someone with access to the relevant information. The bookkeeper may confirm receipt, while the project manager checks an unresolved valuation. Make that distinction explicit rather than assigning every uncertainty to accounts.
Set a review date early enough to affect the decision. A reminder after payroll is due provides little help if the whole plan depended on an unconfirmed customer transfer beforehand.
Keep a record of material changes
When an assumption changes, note the reason and update the affected weeks. If the new date is still uncertain, retain that qualification. Do not remove the old note in a way that makes the original expectation impossible to explain.
Review repeated misses. If the same customer date keeps moving, the next action may be a collection review, not another silent revision in the spreadsheet.
Use the register in the cash conversation
At the review, focus on what changed, what remains unconfirmed and which decision is due next. Ask whether the proposed response actually changes cash or only changes the description of the problem.
If you seek help from CRP about business debt pressure, provide the forecast with these key assumptions. It lets the conversation distinguish recorded commitments from hopeful estimates and identify which facts need checking before a payment proposal is made.