Stories

Who should build and maintain the cash flow forecast of your company? Accountant, CFO, CEO, head of sales, anyone else? To answer this question let’s start by reminding ourselves: why do we do forecasting at all? Why do we do cash flow forecasting? We do it to make sure if we are likely to have […]

We have built the cash flow forecast for our company. How often should we review and update it? The best practice would be doing the reviews at least once a week. However, if the company has considerable cash reserves, less frequent reviews are also acceptable. To begin with, let’s answer another question. Why do we […]

We have hit some very important milestones recently. Among them: we have made Tailwind financial planning app available to users in all countries of European Union. We have also finalized the “white-labelled” version of Tailwind, which makes it easy to integrate financial planning in any banking app and make it look and feel like an […]

Does your company receive or make payments in different currencies? If you use a spreadsheet for cash flow forecasting, things can get complicated and confusing. For example, if you accidentally interpet DKK, NOK or SEK amounts as EUR and mislead yourself about the true state of your company’s cash flow. But it is so much […]

Most entrepreneurs would like to be in control of their cash flows. However too many don’t do any cash flow forecasting as they think it is very time-consuming and only finance experts can do that. In fact, neither is true. You can easily create a cash flow forecast for your business in just 10 minutes. […]

“Within five minutes of creating my account I identified three subscriptions we no longer need; that’s almost two thousand euros saved during next 12 months.” We heard this from an entrepreneur who recently started to use Tailwindapp.eu: Simple & Easy Cash Flow Forecasting for financial planning when we asked about his impressions. Identifying potential savings […]

If you run a small or medium services business, there’s about 50% chance that you have started to do cash flow forecasting at some point but have since quit. Why did you quit forecasting? Not because you don’t see the value in planning. Most probably you agree with conclusions of this EY report that cash […]

Is it sufficient to plan expected monthly totals for incoming and outgoing payments? Or do we need to plan on weekly or even daily level? Long story short: we strongly recommend to plan on daily level at least for the next 2-3 months. Unless you have a large cash reserve. Here’s a visual explanation. Below […]

Next week? Next month? Next quarter? Next year? How far ahead should you plan your company’s cash flow? Why do we plan the cash flows of our companies? We do it to make sure we will have enough cash in the bank when we need it. Ideally, when we do our planning, we validate that […]

We would never consider financial planning a waste of time. But your business can actually skip it if one of the following applies to your company: 1. Your company has large cash reserves If your company has cash reserves equal to 6-12 months of expenses, then indeed skipping financial planning will not do much damage. […]

Have you ever thought about letting go of an important, long-standing client? Not because they don’t pay. But maybe because your firm is moving in a new direction. Or because the relationship feels off. Or maybe you suspect they are doing something unethical. But then you hesitate. What would it mean for our cash flow? […]

“Yes, we do financial planning – we check amounts and due dates on invoices we have issued or received and are planning our cash flow based on that”. We have interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs on their financial planning practices and have heard this answer quite often. For sure, planning in this way is much better […]

Wouldn’t it be great if you could handle both financial planning and payments via the same browser window? We also think so. Therefore we have started working with some of the leading banks and fintechs in Europe to help them build a copy of Tailwind financial planning app into their digital channels. Earlier this month […]

Have you ever had to tell your team that their salaries won’t be paid on time? Our co-founders Kārlis Mikoss and Lars-Erik Hion know what a dreadful feeling it is. They wanted to make sure they would never experience it again and this is what led to building Tailwind! For us and for anyone else running a small or […]

Services firms vs. retailers: should you do financial planning the same way? No, not at all: you need a different approach, different data and different tools. Let’s see what the key differences are! How does planning work for services firms? If you run a services firm (marketing, construction, technology, design, architecture, consulting etc.): 3. Past […]

What if we DON’T win this important new client as we expect? Or don’t expand the team as planned? Or stop using this supplier? It is prudent to examine all sorts of “what ifs” when doing your financial planning. This helps make timely decisions and avoid nasty surprises. But how often have you thought of […]

What do you do if you are thirsty but there is very little water in your glass? Correct – you go get more water and top up your glass. Your company’s cash flow works the same way. Check out this video to see how! The glass is your company’s bank account, the amount of water […]

If you are with a large multinational company, you may want to do both. But if you run a small services firm (marketing, technology, construction, civil engineering, training, consulting etc.), you don’t have time for both. Budgeting helps you understand whether your company will we be profitable (in accounting terms) next year. Cash flow planning […]

Our partner Swedbank Latvija is organizing their annual Experience Days from 11 to 15 November and we are proud to support this fantastic initiative by organizing a webinar on the topic “Cash flow forecasting for small businesses: why and how to do it?”. The webinar will be held at 16.00 on 14 November. Participation is […]

 As a business owner, should cash flow or profitability be the focus of your financial planning? “Both, and also keep an eye on your balance sheet and a dozen of different ratios!” we can already hear hardcore finance analysts scream. They do have a point. Diligent approach to all aspects of financial planning does have […]

Does every single company need to do cash flow forecasting – or can some skip it? At Tailwindapp.eu: Simple & Easy Cash Flow Forecasting we have been explaining the benefits of cash flow forecasting a lot and have built an automated cash flow forecasting tool that allows to be in control by spending just 5-10 […]

How far in the future should you forecast the cash flow of your company? We know – the usual and boring “it depends” is the right answer. The planning horizon can indeed depend on many aspects such as how large cash reserves do you have, whether you are investing in entering new markets or building […]

How to remain informed without spending too much time? If you are investing in startups either as a venture capital firm or angel investor, most probably you will have thought about it many times. Yes, the founding team runs the company but your money is at risk. You want to make sure that they are […]

“What, do we have to pay VAT already tomorrow? And as much as EUR 10k? We won’t be able to do that – please contact the tax administration on our behalf and request an extension of payment deadline” If you run an outsourced accounting services firm that serves small businesses, you will have heard similar […]

If you are a business owner, most probably cash flow forecasting is among many responsibilities that you have. But are you the only one who is making and adjusting the assumptions that your forecast is based on? And are you the only one who’s decisions depend on what your forecast suggests will happen? Probably not. […]

The short answer is that it saves you a lot of time. Running a business without a cash flow forecast is like running in a dense forest with your eyes closed. But most small business owners don’t have any in-house finance experts who could handle it. Business owners have to do it themselves, in addition […]

Tailwind has always allowed you to see your cash flow forecast for as far in the future as necessary. OK, seven years to be precise but none of our users are forecasting for anywhere near as far into the future. But we also know that often entrepreneurs need to zoom in on a specific “slice […]

If you want to stay on top of key business & other news from Baltic countries, we recommend you check out the balticnews. portal. We were pleased to speak to them and share more ojn our mission to simplify financial planning for small and medium businesses across Europe. Please see it below!

At tailwindapp.eu, we have recently interviewed 200+ entrepreneurs running different services businesses to find out more about their financial planning habits with a particular emphasis on cash flow planning. Many of those entrepreneurs said they don’t plan cash flows at all – not because they don’t want to but rather because they believe it takes […]

How often do you review and update your company’s cash flow forecast? Once a week? Once a month? Several times a day? There are no right or wrong answers – it all depends on the circumstances of your company. If you are planning major investments or some of your most important projects are behind schedule, […]

One of the key clients of your agency or consulting firm has just called and said they are prepared to go ahead with the a major project that you have recently discussed. They have emailed you the contract draft. Should you sign it? It is tempting to answer “hell, yeah!” – but it helps to […]

Should I forecast the cash flow of my company for the next week, month, quarter, year or any other period of time? Short answer: at least three months. Longer answer: of course, it does depend what business you are in. But think of it from this perspective: what if the forecast suggests your company is […]

Well…it does not matter as long as you do review your forecasts at least once a week. If your company is delivering project-based services such as software development, construction, marketing services or consulting of any kind, chances are you review the status of your key projects once a week. The moment when you do that […]

As entrepreneurs we are optimists by default – otherwise we would be doing something else. But when it comes to forecasting incoming payments, it helps to be a bit of a pessimist.  This saves quite a lot of time as you don’t have to spend time solving problems every time when things slow down a […]

We have interviewed more than 100 entrepreneurs on their cash flow forecasting practices and one clear trend emerged  pretty early on. About one third of entrepreneurs do not forecast their cash flows. No, not because they have significant cash reserves that would keep them going no matter what.  Most of them had tried forecasting before […]

Some entrepreneurs don’t do cash flow forecasting at all, but many of those who do, use weeks or even months as a unit of time in their forecasts. This is perfectly fine if you are creating approximate forecasts for periods starting 3, 6 or even more months from now. Such an approach is also fine […]

Creating your cash flow forecast is a good start – but only a start. That’s because things change all the time: you win new work, some projects slow down, others get completed earlier than planned.  All of it has an impact on when you will receive or make payments. If your assumptions have changed, your […]

For some companies, cash flow forecasting means reviewing a list of invoices they have already issued. That’s a good start but only allows you to understand what’s likely to happen during the next 3-4 weeks.  And if it looks like you’re about to run out of cash, it might be too late to avoid it. […]

Operating cash flow is an important financial metric for businesses because it provides insight into the cash generated or used by the company’s core operations. In other words, it is like the lifeblood of a business as it’s the money that flows in and out of the company’s core operations. Generally, a positive operating cash […]

Sometimes we are very serious and sometimes a bit cynical about New Year’s resolutions. And yet, at the beginning of every year many of us still make them. It is when we decide to start doing something better, smarter or healthier. We sure feel very proud when we have actually delivered on the promises we […]

How many types of entrepreneurs are there?  When it comes to managing the cash flow of your company there are usually three types of business owners: What type of entrepreneur are you? To identify what type of entrepreneur you are there are some common questions to answer. These are some of the questions that we […]

Cash flow represents the movement of money in and out of a business. While profitability focuses on the value of services provided versus costs incurred, cash flow encompasses the actual cash transactions. This section clarifies the distinction between cash flow and profitability and emphasizes the importance of forecasting cash flow to ensure timely payments and […]