Small business - cash flow and budgeting

[matt819]

The usual small business issue here. Cash flow management. Cash flow reporting in QuickBooks is pretty poor, and I'm having no better luck with third party software that imports QB data. I have 200+ income and expense line items, though, of course, not all show activity in any given week. And then there are the usual household expenses - mortgage, insurance, food, gas, etc.

Spouse tells me to do it by hand (surely it can't be that hard, I'm advised). Maybe I'm overthinking this. Anyone with advice?

[earcandle]

1. When I am working my day job, I do accounting for small businesses , some of which

generate income in six digits.

On a daily basis I offer the owners of one company the following so they know actually what is in process and what is on hold. All payables are paid, and some checks are released and some on hold. I also note projections that I haven't written checks for yet but are coming up. I call it a cash rec and it is on an excel sheet.

It has top left a (now) formula so everyday it captures the date of the report.

Also on the left is cash in bank: a copy of the bank statement for the day is included in the cash rec attachments
Also on the left are deposits in transit that have not yet hit the bank
Also on the left are a deduction for checks released
Also on the left are a deduction for checks on hold
Each section has a total after each deduction.

Amount of cash after deposits in transit clear.
Amount of cash after released checks clear.
Amount of cash after holds clear

On the right are checklists and projections lists in groups with totals linked to the left side:
Checks released and Checks on Hold and Projections coming up.

I also include a ,pdf of the Quickbooks checkbook for the month, so they can see at a glance when something
has already been paid.

The partners also can see how much is in the bank now, how much after checks released clear and how much is
needed to cover checks on hold and projections for the entire month.

The Cash Flows Statement in Quickbooks is useful if your cash at the bottom doesn't match your
balance sheet cash, so you can see there is something in the wrong place. But the concept itself
is confusing to the layman.

Hope this helps.

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