Cash Forecasting With Multiple Scenarios: A CFO's Approach

One number is a guess; a range is a plan

The mistake I see most often is a single-point cash forecast presented as fact. Investors and boards don't believe it — and they shouldn't. What they trust is a model that shows the range of outcomes and the levers that move between them.

Building a useful model

• Base, upside, downside — each tied to explicit assumptions, not optimism levels
• Driver-based so you can flex revenue, churn, and hiring independently
• Weekly cash at the line level, not monthly aggregates
• Trigger dates — the specific runway milestones that force a decision

What it buys you

A good scenario model lets you walk into a board meeting and say: here is what we do if the September round slips. That single sentence is worth more than any spreadsheet formula.