Build a 13-Week Cash Forecast
Build a rolling 13-week cash forecast — weekly receipts, disbursements, and ending balance — in the treasury-standard format used for liquidity planning.
The 13-week cash forecast is the treasury team’s most-used artifact. It projects weekly cash inflows and outflows over a rolling window so leadership can see liquidity coming weeks before it arrives — or fails to. This tutorial walks through building one in Workday OfficeConnect against a model with weekly cash forecasting enabled.
What you’ll build: A treasury-format report with 13 weekly columns showing Beginning Balance, Receipts (by category), Disbursements (by category), Net Cash Flow, and Ending Balance — refreshable from Adaptive Planning.
What you’ll need:
- OfficeConnect installed and signed in (Build Your First Report)
- A model configured with weekly time granularity for cash accounts
- Cash flow accounts broken into Receipts (AR collections, other inflows) and Disbursements (Payroll, AP, Tax, Debt Service, CapEx, Other)
- An opening cash balance loaded for the first week
- Familiarity with time contexts (Time and Contexts)
Step 1 — Set up the weekly columns
1
Add the week headers
On a blank sheet, click B1 and drag Current Week from the Time → Relative Periods group. Continue across C1:N1 for Current Week +1 through Current Week +12. You should now have 13 column headers spanning the rolling 13-week window.
2
Apply a short date format
Format B1:N1 with a custom format like
WE mm/dd so the columns read as the week-ending dates. This is the treasury convention.Step 2 — Build the cash flow row structure
3
Lay out the row labels
In column A, type the structure:
Beginning Balance, a Receipts: header, AR Collections, Other Receipts, Total Receipts, a Disbursements: header, Payroll, AP Payments, Tax, Debt Service, CapEx, Other Disbursements, Total Disbursements, Net Cash Flow, and Ending Balance.4
Pull the opening cash balance
In the Beginning Balance row at column B (the first week), drag the Cash balance account scoped to the period just before the current week. This is the starting point of the forecast.
Step 3 — Populate receipts and disbursements
5
Map accounts to receipt rows
In the AR Collections row, drag the AR Collections account into column B and copy across B:N. Repeat for Other Receipts. Each cell resolves to the forecasted amount for that week.
6
Total receipts
In the Total Receipts row, write
=SUM(B[AR Collections]:B[Other Receipts]) and copy across. This is the weekly cash inflow total.7
Map and total disbursements
Drag the matching account into each disbursement row (Payroll, AP, Tax, Debt Service, CapEx, Other) and copy each across B:N. In Total Disbursements, write
=SUM(B[Payroll]:B[Other Disbursements]) and copy across. Disbursements are stored as positive values in the model and subtracted later in Net Cash Flow.Step 4 — Compute Net Cash Flow and Ending Balance
8
Net Cash Flow
In Net Cash Flow, write
=B[Total Receipts] - B[Total Disbursements] and copy across. This is the weekly change in cash.9
Ending Balance
In Ending Balance at column B, write
=B[Beginning Balance] + B[Net Cash Flow]. From C onward, last week’s ending becomes this week’s beginning — write =B[Ending Balance] + C[Net Cash Flow] and copy across C:N. Optionally, link the Beginning Balance row from week 2 forward to the prior week’s ending.For admins & power users
Treasury teams often add
Minimum Cash and Headroom rows under Ending Balance to show the cushion above a covenant or operating minimum. CFOs read the Headroom row first — the gap to the floor matters more than the absolute level.Step 5 — Refresh, format, and stress-test
10
Refresh and validate
Click Refresh. The 13-week grid populates. Spot-check week 1’s Ending Balance against your bank reconciliation — if it ties at week 1, the rest is arithmetic.
11
Stress-test with a scenario
Drop a second copy of the report on another tab and swap the version to a downside scenario (collections delayed 30 days, for example). Compare Ending Balances side by side. Cross-version comparisons are covered in Scenario Comparison.
Result
You now have a rolling 13-week cash forecast that updates automatically each Monday. Treasury sees the runway week by week; the CFO sees whether the next covenant test is comfortable or tight. The report holds its shape week after week — only the data refreshes.
Next steps
- Pair the cash forecast with the period close cash flow statement — see Cash Flow Statement
- Make the rolling-period mechanic do the same job for monthly views — see Rolling 12-Month Report
- Run downside scenarios alongside the base case — see Scenario Comparison