Cash flow reporting with Cube allows you to create tailored reports that meet specific, immediate business needs. This is particularly useful for cash forecasting, where you need to analyze the impact of various scenarios and make quick adjustments to report to stakeholders.
Use our cash flow template with your Cube spreadsheet add-on to easily import data from multiple sources, understand your current and forecasted cash flow, and support decision-making. This template can be modified to fit your planning cycles and the cash flow analysis you're performing.
Follow along with the video below and this article to try out a simple cash flow exercise to sample this template and then make it your own!
What you'll need:
- Download our template or bring your own.
- Up-to-date actuals data. Learn more about importing here.
- A budget or forecast scenario that has up-to-date data. Learn more about scenarios.
Explore the template
Our cash flow template can be opened in Excel or Google Sheets and used alongside the Cube spreadsheet add-on to push and pull your data stored in the Cube cloud. This functionality allows you to use the powerful features already in spreadsheets. Here are some features already set up in this template that you can modify to fit your model.
Drivers
Many Cube templates use drivers to build dynamic workbooks. These defined lists of your dimension names are usually in a Drivers tab and power dropdown selectors throughout the sheets through data validation.
New to using Drivers? Check out our step-by-step guide here to learn more.
This template has dropdowns to switch between scenarios, and during this exercise, we'll create a new scenario to add to the list. One way to make this easier is to use a larger named range and include some empty cells.
Then ignore blank cells in the data validation. This way, you can add dimensions without needing to set up your named range again.
You will need to update the drivers, account names, and named ranges in this template to match your Cube dimensions before using the Spreadsheet add-on.
Assumptions
This template also includes assumptions in formulas to transform data before publishing it back to Cube. Use the existing power of calculations in the spreadsheet to transform data in real time so you can just as easily publish back to the cloud and compare scenarios.
Review these assumptions in the Detailed Cash Forecast tab and adjust them to fit your business scenario:
- The Expected Billings section outlines the billing distribution. Changes here will flow through the Cash Inflows section.
- The Cash Outflows section includes calculations for bonus and commission schedules and pulls some data directly from the Forecast sheet.
Error handling
There are additional formulas in row 51 for error validation. Learn more about adding validation to your workbooks.
Duplicate your forecast scenario
This workbook is set up to compare two forecasts to see how they compare before and after making some cash flow adjustments. Rather than starting from a fresh scenario, you can create a duplicate of a forecast you're already using. Duplicating scenarios allows you to quickly compare variations of similar scenarios, such as budgets or forecasts, to make strategic decisions.
On the Scenarios tab of the Dimensions page, open the forecast and click the copy icon. You can name this forecast, and then Cube will copy over all existing data.
Want to learn more about making the most out of scenarios in Cube? Check out our best practices guide.
Create some cash flow changes
Publish changes to the new forecast
In order to see the cash flow changes in our template, we'll need to publish changes to our new forecast and then fetch the data. You can do this by:
- Opening your OPEX or budget planning workbook,
- Opening your headcount or workforce planning workbook,
- Or creating an ad hoc report in a new tab of this template.
Then, make a change to your expenses, such as adding a rental expense or increasing benefits.
Be sure that your new forecast is selected as the scenario in the Spreadsheet add-on and publish the changes back to Cube.
Learn more about publishing.
Skip right to comparing forecasts if you want to see how this change flows through your report or continue with changing assumptions.
Change assumptions
Another way to watch cash changes flow through your report is to change the underlying assumptions in this template.
In your Detailed Cash Forecast tab, make adjustments to the expected billings schedule to simulate a weaker economy for a few months of this year, or change the commission amount in the Cash Outflows section.
Publish your changes to your new forecast.
Compare forecasts
The Version Variance tab of this template allows you to compare the changes you've made between the two versions of your forecast scenarios. You'll select the forecasts from the dropdowns and then select the range to fetch data.
Even though you are pulling data to two scenarios, you can select a single range, Cube will use the row and column headers to determine which dimensions to reference. Select cells B6:P35 and click Select, then Select Range in the Spreadsheet add-on.
Any dimensions not listed in the rows and columns will become filters that you can use to segment the data further.
Click Fetch Data to pull the data for your scenarios from the cloud into your Spreadsheet and see the impact of the changes you made earlier on your cash balances.
Additional use cases
While this guide covers just this basic cash forecasting scenario, with some simple adjustments, this cash flow template can be used for various other use cases, such as:
- Weekly cash forecasting: Adjust the template for weekly projections, which is useful for rolling 13-week or 52-week forecasts. Try out our rolling forecasting template if you'd like to learn more about how to set this up.
- Scenario analysis: Create and compare multiple scenarios (e.g., best-case, worst-case) to understand potential impacts on cash flow.
Learn more about cash flow best practices here.