For business owners who wish to track their cash accounting while maintaining their accounting records on the accrual accounting method; the Daily, Weekly, Monthly Cash Flow Sheet provides a simple template to keep track of your company’s cash inflows and outflows. Users can choose whether they wish to enter their cash flow totals daily, weekly, or monthly. They may also enter the information daily and summarize their daily entries on the weekly worksheet, then summarize their weekly data monthly.
The template allows users to enter their company name along the top and choose the starting date. The process begins with entering the starting date and the opening balance (cash on hand) at the beginning of the date. To ensure the date headings work properly, the user is recommended to enter the date in the format presented: YYYY-MM-DD. The entry will convert the date into the following format:
2011-10-31 will turn
into 31-Oct-11
The headings of each column will automatically calculate the next day, week, or month. Each worksheet represents the cash flow activities for one full year. Individuals who wish to continue their cash flow analysis should create a copy of the Cash Flow Sheet template workbook to enter the date and opening balance of the new calendar year.
The Daily Cash Flow Sheet is ideal for retail and hospitality businesses that deal with numerous cash activities and require daily cash reports, (i.e. reconciling cash sales recorded with the physical cash register amounts). Businesses dealing processing payments faster than they can record the transaction will greatly benefit from tracking their cash flow activities daily.
The Weekly Cash Flow Sheet is ideal for small to medium sized companies that have numerous bills paid weekly and don’t deal with as much cash transactions as businesses who would require daily reports. Businesses with numerous clients that get paid often but have set weekly payments would benefit from recorded cash flow weekly.
The Monthly Cash Flow Sheet is a great summary tool for businesses using the daily and weekly cash flow sheets, as well as all businesses that desire to track their monthly cash flow activities. Cash accounting (recording transactions as they are received or paid) is much different from accrual accounting (recording transaction as they occur regardless if cash has been paid or received); therefore, business owners have a vested interest to monitor their monthly cash flow activities to ensure they are capable of affording their monthly operations.
The following is an illustration of ABC Company’s daily cash flow sheets starting August 11, 2011 with an opening balance of $1,083.19:
The ending balance of each day carries over to the next day as the opening balance automatically. The daily cash flow allows business owners to anticipate when additional funds will need to be deposited into the business. As well, the business owner can start withdrawing from the business when excess cash is readily available that does not need to be allocated to cash outflows. Business owners should be cautious to conclude when it is safe to withdraw from a business solely based on daily cash flow activities.
Therefore, it is beneficial for a business owner to monitor their cash flow on month-by-month basis. The following is an illustration of ABC Company’s monthly cash flow for one quarter (three months):
Based on this quarterly summary it is clear the business needs to either increase sales or reduce their monthly spending. The owner is contributing cash each month (referring to the ‘Owner’s Contribution’) to keep the bank balance positive from month to month. A monthly cash flow sheet also helps management prepare monthly budgets moving forward. The cash flow sheet already calculates sub-totals and totals to simplify the process. As well, the row and column headings are frozen for ease of scrolling up, down, left, and right. For small businesses that currently do not track their cash flow, the Daily, Weekly, Monthly Cash Flow Sheet is a helpful tool.