Cash Flow

Cash-Flow Management

Know exactly where cash stands, where it is going, and how long it lasts — before the answer becomes urgent.

  • Short- and long-term cash forecasting
  • Weekly cash management discipline
  • Burn-rate and runway analysis
  • Working-capital and financing planning

Runway decision framework

Reading the runway
before it reads you

The useful comparison is not runway against zero — it is runway against how long your realistic options take to execute.

SituationWhat it meansWhat to do
Reliable 13-week forecast in placeCash position and short-term pinch points are known, not guessed.Maintain the weekly rhythm; manage working capital deliberately.
Runway longer than a financing takesTime is on your side — the best position to negotiate from.Plan the next raise or facility on your schedule, not under pressure.
Runway approaching financing lead-timeThe window for orderly options is starting to close.Start financing conversations now; tighten discretionary spend.
Runway shorter than a financing takesEvery week matters and options narrow quickly.Payment prioritization, aggressive collections, and parallel financing paths.

More businesses fail from running out of cash than from running out of ideas. Profitable companies can still hit cash crises; growing companies hit them most often. Cipher Financial builds the visibility and discipline that keep cash from becoming a surprise.

Cash-flow services

  • Short-term cash forecasting — 13-week direct cash-flow forecasts: receipts, disbursements, and the weekly position, updated on a rhythm.
  • Long-term cash forecasting — twelve months and beyond, integrated with the operating forecast.
  • Weekly cash management — a repeatable weekly process: what came in, what goes out, what needs a decision.
  • Burn-rate monitoring and runway analysis — for pre-revenue and venture-backed companies, an accurate answer to the only question that matters: how many months are left, under which assumptions.
  • Working-capital planning — receivables, payables, and inventory managed deliberately rather than by default.
  • Payment prioritization — when cash is tight, a defensible framework for who gets paid and when.
  • Scenario modelling — what happens to cash if the big customer pays late, the launch slips a quarter, or the raise takes longer than planned.
  • Financing requirements — how much headroom the business needs, and early identification of when external financing conversations should start.
  • Management dashboards — cash position, runway, and working-capital measures visible to management every week without anyone building a spreadsheet from scratch.

The goal: no surprises

Good cash management rarely looks dramatic. It looks like a management team that knows its position, sees pressure building months in advance, and makes decisions early — when options are still cheap. That is the standard these engagements are built to.

Discuss cash-flow management
for your business

A brief, confidential conversation with Toronto-based CFO leadership. No obligation, and useful either way.