Most small businesses that fail are profitable on paper when they do it. What runs out is cash, and it runs out because of timing: the money owed to you arrives in week nine and payroll lands in week seven. A forecast is the difference between seeing that six weeks out, when you still have cheap options, and seeing it on the morning the payment fails, when you have only expensive ones.

It is also the document that changes how a lender reads you. Anyone can say they need money. An owner who arrives with a thirteen week forecast showing exactly which week the gap opens, how large it is and when it closes is asking a different and much more answerable question.

You need the bookkeeping current, because a forecast built on stale numbers is fiction. Then collect:

• Every unpaid invoice, with the amount and the date it is actually due
• Every fixed payment and the day of the month it goes out: rent, insurance, loan payments, software, phone
• Your payroll dates and the typical amount
• Tax payment dates, including sales tax and estimated tax
• Your current bank balance, today, from the bank rather than from memory