Cash Flow
What money the business expects in and out, week by week, from its own invoices, bills, claims and pay periods: the low point, the floor, budgets against what moved, and what-if scenarios that never touch a real record.
Getting started
These are the steps in the order somebody would do them. The same list is in the tool: press F1, or the control reading "How this works" at the top of the window.
1. Type today's balance and press Save the balance
On the Forecast, type what your bank account holds today. Keyway holds no bank feed, so the forecast starts from the balance you type and adds everything the tools record after it. Set up keeps it, with the day it was true.
2. Read the weeks
Each week lists what comes in and goes out, and every line names the tool and the record that put it there: confirmed when the money moved, expected when a record names the day, assumed when your own assumptions do.
3. Try a what-if
On Scenarios, have customers pay later, leave something out or add a hire or a purchase, and compare it with the plan week by week. A scenario changes nothing in any other tool.
4. Set a floor and budgets
Set the balance you want to stay above and who to tell. When the plan dips below it, that person finds a note here; nothing is ever sent to anybody outside the business.
The screens, and what to do first on each
Each of these opens with nothing on it on a new install. What the tool says on that screen is what this section says, because it is the same sentence.
No balance has been typed yet
With a balance typed, each week says what it opens and closes on, and the forecast finds where the money runs lowest and when it would pass the floor.
First thing to do: Type today's balance on the Forecast and press Save the balance.
No scenario has been made yet
Customers paying later, an order left out, a hire from next month, a van bought outright: each is a scenario, and each is kept here beside the plan until you archive it.
First thing to do: Press New scenario.
No budget has been set for this month
A budget is what you mean to take in or spend in one category in one month, held against what the tools recorded as it happens.
First thing to do: Choose a category, type the month's budget and press Save budget.
What the forecast starts from and assumes
The balance you type, how soon customers pay at each age, supplier terms, when claims and wages are paid, the lines you add by hand, and the floor with the person to tell.
First thing to do: Start with today's balance: every week is counted from it.
If you get stuck
Write to support@keywaysuite.com. We answer within one business day. Keyway can send us what it knows about your installation: open the hub, go to About and press Get support. It writes one file wherever you choose and never includes your licence, a password, a customer name or a customer address.