---
id: financeiros/projecao-de-caixa
industry: Financial services
usage: specific
effort: high
grain: Week (or day) x flow type x view x vehicle; snapshot per forecast date
---

# Cash flow forecast

Cash for the next 13 weeks of a lending or funding operation, adding portfolio receivables, pipeline disbursements, debt and investors, with actuals, contracted and forecast kept apart and management's assumptions versioned.

## Executive summary

**For:** Lending fintechs, funding platforms, asset managers and BPO firms that decide every week how much they can disburse, raise or distribute.

**What it solves**

- A weekly forecast that starts from the real balance and separates what already came in, what is contracted and what is still pipeline.
- The pipeline enters weighted by its chance of closing, and contracted deals at full value.
- Every management assumption has a value, validity period and author, and last week's forecast can be rebuilt.

**Why it matters:** In a lending or funding operation, cash decides how much can be released this month, when to raise and whether the debt fits the schedule. A forecast that adds pipeline as if it were contracted, or treats installments from delinquent borrowers as certain inflows, leads to disbursements without backing. And without each week's snapshot, nobody can measure whether the forecast is accurate.

**Business questions it answers**

- What is the projected cash for the next 13 weeks and in which week does it hit the minimum?
- How much will we disburse in the next 3 months between contracted deals and weighted pipeline?
- How much in buybacks and portfolio installments comes in this quarter?
- Do debt service and investor payments fit next semester's cash?
- How far below the approved budget did this month's actuals land?
- What did this week's forecast look like a month ago?

**What you need**

- ERP with receivables, payables and account balances, and the operations base, connected to Nekt
- The debt, fundraising and investor distribution schedules
- Management's assumptions in writing: probability scale, overdue rule, renegotiations and manual expectations

**What you get**

- A week x flow type x view table, with cumulative balance and minimum cash
- An assumptions table with validity dates, separate from the raw data
- Weekly forecast snapshots to compare with actuals and with the budget
- An AI agent that answers about cash stating which view it is using

## Detailed

### The problem

Cash in a financial operation comes from sources that do not talk to each other: the ERP has receivables due up to ten years out, the operations base has disbursements that are still negotiations, the debt has interest that depends on the Selic rate and investors have their own distribution dates. Adding it all into one number mixes certain money with bets. When management adjusts the spreadsheet by hand, last week's forecast can no longer be rebuilt and nobody knows how far off it was.

### Business rules

1. **Three views that do not mix.** Actual is what already moved, by the date it happened (posting or realized date). Contracted is what has a contract, by the contract date and amount or the current best estimate. Forecast is pipeline without a contract yet. Each row carries its view, and actual, contracted and forecast are distinct products, not a cascade where one fills the other's gaps. (Avoid: Using the forecast amount when the contracted one is empty, and adding everything as if it were one thing.)
2. **Weighted pipeline, contracted at full value.** Disbursements and contributions under negotiation enter multiplied by the commercial probability scale (for example: approved by committee 100%, hot 80%, warm 45%, cold 15%). A deal without a linked probability takes the lowest band, never 100%. From contracted onward, the amount enters in full. When the scale changes, comparisons crossing that date mix method with pipeline: record the date. (Avoid: Adding the pipeline at full value, or giving 100% to deals with no probability.)
3. **Sign by cash direction.** Portfolio bases often use the exposure sign: a disbursement or contribution adds to capital deployed, buybacks and amortization subtract. In cash it is the opposite: a disbursement is an outflow, a buyback or an installment received is an inflow. Convert once, in the cash layer, and state the convention: inflows positive, outflows negative. (Avoid: Reading the portfolio base amount directly as a cash movement.)
4. **Portfolio receivables with conservative exclusion.** Upcoming installments enter by expected date and, without one, by due date, within an explicit window: long contracts generate receivables for years. Upcoming installments from borrowers who are already delinquent stay out of inflows, except for an approved exceptions list. Overdue amounts go to their own recovery line. Renegotiated debt enters by the agreement's schedule, never by the old receivables. (Avoid: Adding every upcoming installment, including from borrowers who already do not pay.)
5. **Interest, debt and investors on their own schedules.** Interest and dividends receivable, debt amortization and interest, and investor distributions enter by each contract's schedule (Price, SAC (constant amortization), scheduled amortization or cash sweep). A floating rate uses the projected index for the agreed period (for example, the previous month's Selic), with the contract's cap. Forecast uses the contracted view; actuals use what was actually paid. (Avoid: Projecting interest at today's rate for every month, or mixing contracted and realized dividends.)
6. **Real opening balance, by vehicle.** The starting point is the closing balance of every bank account of every company or vehicle, on the last available day, converted to America/Sao_Paulo. Past months use the last day of the month. When management provides a statement balance different from the ERP, it enters as a one-day assumption, with the ERP amount kept alongside for audit. (Avoid: Starting from an unrecorded typed balance, or from the main company only.)
7. **Assumptions in a table with validity dates.** Overdue rule, approved exceptions, renegotiations, new contracts, the week's manual expectation and the provided balance live in a table with value, validity (from and to) and a note, published from a versioned file. The adjusted forecast is the raw base plus the assumptions valid on the reference date. Meeting decisions go in another table, with no numbers. Nobody edits the query by hand. (Avoid: Adjusting the week's number in the spreadsheet or in the query.)
8. **Manual expectation is explicit.** The weekly manual expectation is an amount management expects to receive from new work or collections in progress. It is not a historical collection average. It appears on its own line and the forecast is also shown without it. An expected receipt only improves the forecast if it is additional (outside what the ERP already projects); if it is already in the ERP, it is already provisioned. (Avoid: Treating the manual expectation as an average and mixing it into inflows.)
9. **Every forecast and every budget is snapshotted.** Save each week's forecast with the date it was made, in append mode, and keep the last version of each day of the pipeline. An approved budget is a frozen snapshot per cycle, compared with the target and with actuals. A cycle that was not run is absent on purpose and is not a load failure. (Avoid: Recalculating the forecast over the previous one on every run.)

### Where each cash line comes from

View, date and amount used for each flow type.

- **ERP posting or realized date in the operations base** → Actual (`effective date and amount`)
- **signed contract, contracted contribution or disbursement** → Contracted (`best date and amount, unweighted`)
- **in pipeline, negotiation or contracting** → Weighted pipeline (`amount x probability`)
- **upcoming installments from current borrowers, within the window** → Portfolio receivables (`expected date or due date`)
- **overdue installments and upcoming ones from delinquent borrowers** → Recovery, outside the balance (`own line`)
- **debt, fundraising and distribution schedule** → Debt and investors (`projected index for the period`)
- **manual expectation, new contract, provided balance** → Management assumption (`valid on the reference date`)

### Definitions

| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Opening balance | sum of the closing balance of the accounts included in the flow, across all vehicles, on the last available day before the reference date |
| Projected inflows | portfolio receivables within the window without delinquent borrowers, contracted buybacks and interest, contracted fundraising and weighted inflow pipeline, by week |
| Projected outflows | contracted disbursements and contributions, weighted outflow pipeline, debt amortization and interest, investor distributions and payables, by week |
| Projected balance | previous week's projected balance + inflows - outflows, from the opening balance, with and without the manual expectation |
| Minimum cash | lowest projected balance within the horizon and the week it occurs |
| Weighted amount | movement amount x the probability of its band on the scale, only for deals before contracted |
| Forecast accuracy | week's actual / amount projected for the same week in the snapshot from N weeks earlier, by flow type |

### Pitfalls

- **100% default in the pipeline.** Deals with no linked probability entered at 100% and inflated the contribution forecast. The default moved to the lowest band, and the forecast dropped at once. How to avoid: Lowest band as default and the date of the change recorded.
- **Portfolio through 2036.** Upcoming receivables from recurring contracts ran up to ten years out, and the sum described the long-term portfolio, not the quarter's cash. How to avoid: An explicit forecast window.
- **Dates as text and in UTC.** ERP dates stored as dd/mm/yyyy text sorted alphabetically, and the daily balance stamped at midnight UTC only landed on the right day by coincidence. How to avoid: Convert text to date and the timestamp to America/Sao_Paulo explicitly.
- **Zeroed ERP summary.** One company's financial summary showed receivables and payables at zero while its receivables table showed significant overdue amounts. How to avoid: From the summary, use only the balance; inflows and outflows come from the receivables and payables.
- **A receipt that settles an agreement.** A payment read as a current monthly fee was an agreement installment used to settle old receivables, and the customer looked current. How to avoid: Classify the receipt by the agreement category before projecting recurrence.
- **A method change looks like a pipeline change.** Changing the probability scale moved the forecast on a day when no deal changed stage. How to avoid: Store the scale with validity dates and compare forecasts using the same scale.

### Acceptance test

- [ ] For each week, opening balance + inflows - outflows = closing balance, and the closing balance is the next week's opening balance.
- [ ] The opening balance matches the ERP or statement balance for the day (zero difference), or the provided-balance assumption appears with the ERP amount alongside.
- [ ] No contracted or actual deal appears with a weighted amount, and no pipeline deal appears at full value.
- [ ] No upcoming installment from a delinquent borrower outside the exceptions list enters projected inflows.
- [ ] Running the forecast again does not change any earlier week's snapshot.

### Context document

```text
Cash flow forecast
- Horizon: <13> weeks, starting on Monday of the current week (America/Sao_Paulo).
- Views: actual (effective date), contracted (best date and amount, full value), forecast (pipeline x probability). Every answer states which view it uses. Never fill one view with another.
- Probability: <approved 100%, hot 80%, warm 45%, cold 15%>. No probability = lowest band.
- Sign: inflows positive, outflows negative. Disbursements and contributions are outflows; buybacks, installments and interest received are inflows.
- Portfolio receivables: by expected date, otherwise due date. Installments from delinquent borrowers stay out, except <exceptions list>. Overdue on its own line. Renegotiated by the agreement schedule.
- Debt, interest and investors: by each contract's schedule, with the projected index for the period and the cap.
- Opening balance: closing balance of every account included, across all vehicles. A balance provided by management applies only within its validity and keeps the ERP amount alongside.
- Assumptions in <assumptions table>, filtered by validity on the reference date. The manual expectation is not a collection average; show the forecast with and without it.
- Minimum cash = lowest projected balance in the horizon and the week it occurs.
- Past forecasts and budgets come from the snapshots. Do not recalculate a week's number that was already presented.
Client exceptions:
- <client>: vehicles <list> enter the consolidated view; <vehicle> stays out.
- <client>: the probability scale changed on <date>; before that, <old scale> applied.
```

### Variations

- **Budget vs. forecast vs. actuals:** Budget frozen per cycle, forecast at the last version of the day and actuals, side by side by month and by deal type.
- **Daily forecast for treasury:** The same model at day x account grain, to decide investments, redemptions and transfers between vehicles.
- **BPO for many clients:** One forecast per client of the firm, each with its own assumptions table and its own ERP connection.