CFOs: Master Cash Flow Forecasting

Megan - 00:00:18: Today, my guest is Colin Hewitt. With over two decades of experience in the software industry, Colin is the CEO and co-founder of Float the award-winning cash flow forecasting tool for small businesses. Colin's passion is to make small business finances make sense by providing easy and accurate scenario planning and budgeting features that integrate with popular accounting platforms. Float is the culmination of Colin's previous entrepreneurial journey as the founder and MD of If Looks Could Kill, a digital agency that specialized in brand development, communication strategy, and website design. Colin co-founded Float in 2011 after facing the challenges of managing cash flow for his own business and clients. Since then, Float has grown to serve tens of thousands of customers worldwide and has been recognized as one of the top accounting apps by Xero and QuickBooks Online. Colin is also an active participant and supporter of the startup ecosystem in Scotland, having helped TechCube get started and being based in Codebase, Scotland's largest tech incubator. Colin enjoys mentoring and supporting other entrepreneurs and sharing about financial management and scaling businesses. Colin, thank you very much for being my guest on today's episode of CFO Weekly.

Colin - 00:02:12: Great. Nice to meet you.

Megan - 00:02:14: Yeah, today we're going to be talking about leveraging cash flow forecasting for financial leadership and strategic decision making. And I'm really looking forward to learning more about this topic from you. So let's get started.

Colin - 00:02:27: Yeah, Megan, let's get into it.

Megan - 00:02:28: So with your extensive background in entrepreneurship and software industry, can you share with our listeners a pivotal moment or experience that inspired you to co-found Float and how that journey has shaped your perspective on financial leadership?

Colin - 00:02:44: Yeah, absolutely. So interestingly, it was my first business that I was using. I was running an agency business and I needed, I just felt like I'm constantly out of control of the finances and I was getting accounts produced by my accountant and it really didn't make any sense to me. It was a profit and loss. It was a balance sheet. Really what I wanted to know was how much cash have we got in the business? Can we afford to pay ourselves? Can we afford to buy equipment? Can we invest in marketing? And it was just really difficult to know. So I kind of was driven to a spreadsheet and I ended up maintaining that spreadsheet and it took me hours every week to look at my bank balance, figure out what I've actually spent. What's coming out? When are my invoices expected in? When are my bills to be paid? And it just, yeah, it was an hour long job. I was the only person who could do it. And yeah, I figured there's got to be a better way. And that was kind of what drove us to that with the advent of cloud accounting, which meant that we sort of saw a way that we'd be able to get our data out of our accounting software and into something a bit like the spreadsheet we were using, but hopefully online and it will be used by multiple people.

Megan - 00:03:59: And tell us a little bit about Float What are the products? Who are they meant for? Who's the ideal client?

Colin - 00:04:08: Yeah, so Float is really short-term to medium-term cash flow management and forecasting solution. And it's not supposed to be a complex financial modeling solution. We built it to be able to be understandable by business owners. But really, the ideal customer is the CFO. And increasingly, we're seeing this rise of the fractional CFO role. And often, they've got maybe five clients that they're working with. And they don't want to have to keep going back to Excel to build short-term, 13-week, 6-month cash flow forecasts. So really, what we like to do is we almost predict the future bank balance over the weeks and months. But our sweet spot, our USP, is that we can show to the day. So many forecasting solutions that are on the market are showing beginning and month-end cash flow. Whereas we can show the impact. If somebody paying a few days late or just something that you've got a significant shortfall in the middle of the month that a lot of systems might not pick up. And yeah, we're seeing. Many types of business coming in and using this, but really it's often the fractional CFO that needs to come in and set it up and build the systems to make it work smoothly.

Megan - 00:05:26: And does the product just kind of plug into QuickBooks or Xero?

Colin - 00:05:31: Yes. So it takes the information out of QuickBooks and Xero. Those are our two primary pieces of software that we integrate with. So as long as that software is up to date, we'll pull in all the accounts payable, accounts receivable, and we let you create a budget Float So Float a direct method forecasting solution. So we're looking at all the invoices in and the bills to pay, but we're also adding a budgeting layer on top of it. So it's kind of like a hybrid solution where you get to see, you might have a marketing budget that you said, you're planning on spending $10,000, but you actually have an invoice comes in for $15,000. We're going to know, let's use the $15,000 rather than the $10,000 budget because you've exceeded that budget. So it's bringing those two things together, the two data points. And when you've got multiple budget lines and multiple invoices and bills coming out, it starts to get pretty complicated to keep all that up to date.

Megan - 00:06:22: And cash flow forecasting is often hailed as the cornerstone of financial management. So talk to us about how accurate cash flow forecasts can empower CFOs to make proactive decisions and navigate through financial uncertainties.

Colin - 00:06:38: Yeah, so it's a lot of times businesses, they're not maintaining a cash flow forecast that they can really rely on. So they might have, if they've done a model at the beginning of the year or the beginning of the quarter, things change every day in a business. And so having something that has that consistency of it's immediately up to date based on anything that hits your accounting software, it gives another layer of visibility into what's going on in the accounts. And many times business owners would say to me, I never look at, I'm not looking at my QuickBooks or my Xero account, but I will look at a cash flow forecast like Float And I'd rather do that than looking at a spreadsheet, because again, with a spreadsheet, you don't have that sense of there's live data, whereas Float going to have that live data coming through. There's just, you've got everything you need. So as long as you're keeping your budgets up to date, then you can be pretty confident that you're, you know, what your bank balance is today and tomorrow is going to be accurate.

Megan - 00:07:39: And as the CEO and co-founder of Float you've obviously witnessed firsthand the transformative power of cash flow forecasting for small businesses. So can you share with us a specific success story or maybe a case study where accurate cash flow forecasting played a pivotal role in driving strategic decision making?

Colin - 00:08:00: We speak to so many businesses. I probably can't give a real life story from one of those, but we do hear from so many people like these types of stories where people say, I literally expected that, I thought that we paid that bill. And when I looked at our cashflow, it hadn't been paid. So the money that was in our bank was actually not the real money that we were sitting on. That just happened so many times. Or there's a tax transaction that has been set up by somebody who knows this due to come out and the business owner hadn't been factoring it in and gone out and taken money out of the business or invested in something that was putting them, you know, going to put them into a deficit position. So there's just so many anecdotes like that where business owners literally say, I can sleep better at night because I've got all the data. And yeah, it's being able to make payroll. It's being able to, the good stories are just that confidence and being able to spend money as well. Like for small businesses, so many of them are scared. Like recently, somebody was saying to me, a business owner saying, you know, we're a 2 million turnover business. I'm looking at the bank account. We've got 100,000 in the bank one day and then 5,000 the next. When's that going to stop? And it's like, well, it's very easy to predict that when you just model out all your costs because that's just the way cash flows in the business. But they hadn't kind of got to that realization. They were holding on to money because they never knew what was theirs to spend and what wasn't.

Megan - 00:09:27: Yeah.

Colin - 00:09:27: And when you, when you put it all down in a system, it's really easy to see how much cash you actually have free cash to spend. And that can be really empowering for businesses. They're maybe sitting on too much cash and there are some businesses say to us, I don't need a cash flow. I've got lots of cash, but they're actually not investing as much as they could be because they're holding on too much of a safety buffer.

Megan - 00:09:48: I wonder what percentage of small businesses fail simply because they don't have control of their cash flow. They just don't know what's there to spend and what's already been spent. And it's not due to their product, but more because they just didn't have control of cash.

Colin - 00:10:06: Yeah. Well, there's a study that says 82% of business side cash flow is the main thing. 82%, but I'm skeptical of that number because I think sometimes businesses' cash flow is there's other things that are going on. Maybe they didn't have the margins that they needed or they didn't. But cash was certainly kind of the early bellwether sign that something's going on. And I do think that many businesses just to see, just build the model and then look at it and go, something's not right here. Why spend the next year just going through the same cycle of 100k in and 100k out? And when we get to the point where we really need to fix our margin or our payment cycles or something that's going to give us the leverage we need to grow this business or something that's just going to give us that peace of mind to make this less stressful every month. I think it's really great just to have that insight. And looking at a spreadsheet that hasn't been updated in three months, it's just not going to give you that insight.

Megan - 00:11:05: And in today's fast-paced business landscape, agility and adaptability are obviously crucial for survival. So how do you see CFOs leveraging cash flow forecasting tools to anticipate and respond to sudden changes in market conditions?

Colin - 00:11:22: Yeah, I think the big thing that we've added into Flow recently is scenario planning. So a cash flow is just one snapshot of one view of how things could happen. And really, when it becomes powerful, it's being able to say, well, let's just model out this scenario. Like, what happens if 10% of our clients go bust? Or what happens if our major client can't pay us for the next 90 days? And you can see those things very quickly when you start building scenarios. And that's one of the things that's really difficult to do in a spreadsheet. So yeah, I think just scenario planning, fast scenario planning, without getting really complicated about it, just being able to change a couple of variables and see on a graph the impact of those things is super powerful.

Megan - 00:12:06: Yeah, that's amazing capability right there. How many years ago did you found Float

Colin - 00:12:12: We actually started Float as an idea in 2010. And then I went full time with it in 2012. And we launched it in the marketplace in 2014. So we're basically 10 years, coming up to 10 years in the market.

Megan - 00:12:29: So I was wondering how many of your clients have blowed to thank for surviving COVID during those years. Because cash was so important at that point in time.

Colin - 00:12:41: Yeah, well, again, we don't know exactly what the numbers are there, but we do know that a lot of people just say it's one of those things that they didn't know they needed it. And then once they have it, they're like, I wouldn't live without this. This is my sleep at night, my safety net. And yeah, the trouble is, it's like a lot of them just have never, they've never known what's possible. And so, yeah, we're excited by seeing the kind of this move of businesses to bring in external financial advisors, like fractional CFOs, to be able to kind of hand that over to them and say, here you go. This is what it looks like.

Megan - 00:13:16: And effective communication with stakeholders is essential for CFOs to align financial goals and foster transparency within the organization. So how can CFOs use cash flow forecasts as a communication tool to engage with the C-suite, investors, board members, internal teams, particularly during times of volatility?

Colin - 00:13:41: Yeah, a lot of investors say to us, gosh, we just don't get the financial information we need from so many of our businesses and our portfolio. And there's a sort of misconception, I think, of how, you know, should you create a budget at the beginning of the year? Should you change that budget at any point when you know you're not going to hit your targets or you're not going to hit the figures you were aiming for? I think what's really great is having these two models, this longer term forecast and longer term budget that's been set at the beginning of the year. And then more of a short term, realistic, what we expect to come out cash flow. Because often that business, that initial forecast that's done at the beginning of the year and signed off, you'll know within a couple of months, like, yeah, we're not going to make that power anymore. But you've got it in the budget and the budget hasn't been changed. So, having a cash flow view, which already taken that spend out and shows what the cash flow is going to actually look like, can be really useful. So, we always provide the two models. We provide our original budget that we set at the beginning of the year, and we maybe update it either quarterly or every six months. But we've also got this cash position view with multiple scenarios that we can put in as well and show, here's the cash scenario that we're predicting. And ultimately, for many startup businesses, cash is the only thing that matters and not when you're looking at it, that's taking that higher level view, like, does this business have enough cash? And if it does, then we can dig into profitability and speed of getting paid and all that kind of stuff. But the cash is the first thing that we need to, if we're running out of cash, those conversations are almost insignificant.

Megan - 00:15:19: And technology is continuously evolving and very quickly. So, what emerging trends or innovations? Do you foresee shaping the future of cash flow forecasting, first of all? And then secondly, how can CFOs stay ahead of this curve?

Colin - 00:15:36: Yeah, I think the big one for us is that moving from longer term P&L indirect forecasts to giving something which is short term direct method, daily level accuracy cash flow. So whether you call it a 13 week cash flow or a six months to 12 month short term forecast, it's something that bringing those two together and saying, look, we can actually get these to work together. They're not, it's not too hard. It's not too much work because we're seeing a lot of companies now using QuickBooks in Xero when in the past they might have had them moved up to a NetSuite or something like a lot more complicated. Now you can leverage all the other add on technology to build a really nice solution for even a scaling company of 10 to 20 million and still be using QuickBooks in Xero as a base for that as a general ledger. But you're bringing in other solutions like AR and AP, data recognition for invoices or for expense management, all that kind of stuff. So you can really build a great solution by pulling a bunch of tools together. And there are other solutions out there that are great for longer term reporting and FP&A that Floworks really nicely with as well. So I think it's about pulling together that tech stack and keeping on top of what technology is available to be able to give the board and the business what they need.

Megan - 00:17:01: I'm curious about things like generative AI and machine learning. Do you see those playing a part in the future? I mean, I imagine that eventually they'll be able to pull things from all sorts of places and maybe help in that scenario planning.

Colin - 00:17:16: Yeah, I think we're keeping an eye on that. There's definitely been some solutions that have come to the marketplace. But the trouble is with generative AI, it doesn't seem to be really delivered in terms of numerical forecasting at this stage. As soon as you introduce kind of risk. You need to start thinking about, how much can I trust this and how many of these numbers are generated and how good is the level of prediction? Is it based on 12 months data? Is it based on seasonal trends? It starts to raise a lot of questions as to what's really going on. And so ultimately having a forecast that you can make, you're confident to make decisions on that you know somebody has looked at and agreed and signed off, I think is the most important thing. So we're not seeing a ton of generative AI coming into this space at the moment. But I think it's obviously moving there over the next couple of years and we're keeping a close eye on why we can use that and harness that to help make predictions better. And, but yeah, it's as soon as it gets too advanced and hands off, then I think businesses start to lose trust. And when they lose trust, then you're kind of you might as well not have the forecast in the first place. So it's really about is this something I can make a confident decision on and that's what we focus on.

Megan - 00:18:35: And can you discuss some best practices for CFOs to incorporate scenario analysis into their cash flow forecasting processes, especially today when things are just so unpredictable?

Colin - 00:18:47: Yeah, I think the best practice is really having when you've got a good bookkeeping solution. So you're doing that bank reconciliation on a much more regular basis. I think in the past, some businesses only needed to do it at the end of the month or end of the quarter. Whereas now, if you want to have that, if you get a system that you can do that every day, every couple of times a week, then you've got that real-time data flowing into your forecasting and your reporting solutions. And that feels like the holy grail for so many businesses to kind of have real time financial information. I don't want to go in and look at my QuickBooks for Xero account as somebody, I want that to be the domain of somebody else. It's a technical product ultimately for paying tax. And what I want to see is that real-time dashboard of what's going on in my business. And so. Solutions that are, yeah, able to get expense management in able to make sure that, as soon as somebody makes a payment, and the bills are sent in into the accounting software and reconciled as soon as it's paid. All of that just makes that kind of real-time financial management much more available. So that's the kind of big one that i would say businesses that when people don't have that then they're going to struggle.

Megan - 00:20:01: And how can CFOs strike a balance between investing in growth initiatives and maintaining healthy cash reserves? And how does cash flow forecasting facilitate in this balancing act?

Colin - 00:20:14: Yeah, I think one of the big things that businesses can do is set aside cash and build up a buffer or a treasury or a war chest, depending on what you want to call it, where you're actually, like you say, you've got some cash in reserve. One of the best ways to do that is kind of set that money off in a separate bank account. And actually, there's some great treasury management solutions on the market now where you're able to even earn decent interest rates on that money in a safe way. And I think what you can do in Float is you can actually exclude bank accounts from your cash flow view. And that allows you to think about what's the cash that I have as working capital not dipping into my reserves. So it's almost like you're setting it away and it's not the business owner isn't thinking this is cash available to us, ,this is our it's separate set aside. But yeah, what we suggest is you do it on a regular basis. You set up a regular payment and like see even savings or personal finances. It's just about putting that money aside either when you can or on a regular basis and building that treasure chest.

Megan - 00:21:23: And Float has been recognized as one of the top accounting apps by industry leaders. So talk to us about what sets Float apart from other cash flow forecasting tools. You might have already touched on it a bit, but in more detail.

Colin - 00:21:37: Yeah, I think the thing for us is it's about the short term. It's about that daily level in between months. There's some great solutions on the market. Solutions like Fathom and Giraffe and Spotlight, Planful. A bunch of solutions that are out there that help build those financial models. But really where Float comes into it is in. I want to see what happens between on the 15th of the month or what happens on the 19th if that client doesn't make that payment on time. So it's about giving you that confidence on a daily level. And most people don't do that. They're focusing on more of an indirect model, a balance sheet, a P&L, and we just keep it on cash and give you that daily level accuracy with the multiple scenarios as well. I think that's the other really powerful thing that you just cannot do in a spreadsheet very easily.

Megan - 00:22:26: And what size businesses should be looking at this product? Like, is there a specific revenue that's kind of your sweet spot?

Colin - 00:22:34: Yeah, we tend to find that once a business has four or five employees, then cash flow starts to become an issue because you've got to make that payroll.

Megan - 00:22:43: So important.

Colin - 00:22:44: But we're surprised businesses that are coming to us that are turning over $10 million still are looking for that solution. They're going through a period of change and they're spending money and they want to manage it. They want to know that they're not going to hit a limit where they go over and they need that extra visibility into the day-to-day level of cash. So, yeah, it's really, if you've got a good bookkeeping solution and you're keeping on top of your accounting and you're still using QuickBooks and Xero, then we scale all the way up. But it's, yeah, we're not specific on that.

Megan - 00:23:16: And as an active participant in Scotland's startup ecosystem, you've mentored and supported numerous entrepreneurs. So from your experience, what advice would you offer to aspiring business leaders looking to enhance their skills in cash flow forecasting, particularly if they don't have a background in finance or accounting?

Colin - 00:23:39: Yeah, I think the big one is to, if you don't have that financial head in-house, certainly I think the US has kind of led the way on this, but in the UK, we're really starting to see a rise in the fractional CFO role. And that's the biggie for us, to just to give that advice to say, look, you can bring in somebody even for a project, just have a look at your finances and get you up to scratch or even one day a month might be enough to help you start to build that process to get your management accounts out and really send out the right board pack every month. So I think starting with finding the right fractional advice is huge. And then also bringing in a really good bookkeeping person, somebody to help just keep your QuickBooks, Xero account up to date on a regular basis, somebody who loves that sort of stuff, somebody to chase invoices, make sure that you're bringing in cash on time. It's really about building that team and it doesn't have to cost, you know, it really, it can be part-time bookkeeper, part-time controller and part-time CFO. Like it's all available. And then let your accountant do the taxes and make sure that you're working with them to keep that whole, to run that whole team off. But yeah, I think a lot of businesses are, they've kind of left it to their accountant to do everything. And they're maybe a bit disappointed that they haven't got more and they've maybe given up, but actually there's so much more you can get when you bring in somebody who can make that team work for you really well.

Megan - 00:25:09: Yeah, great advice. So looking ahead, what do you envision as the future role of CFOs in driving organizational success? And how do you see cash flow forecasting evolve to help meet those needs?

Colin - 00:25:23: Yeah, like I've said many times, we see the role of the CFO becoming more and more. Certainly in the sub 10 million, a lot of businesses do not need a full-time CFO. And I think from the CFO point of view as well, they can enjoy working for multiple clients. Some of them, there's a lot that they can be offering and getting that variation in their work can be great for them too. So we see that more and more CFOs moving into fractional roles, more and more businesses looking for those roles. And I think, yeah, for those CFOs having the tools in their toolkit to be able to say, here's how we're going to build this really great system that's going to get you up-to-date, real-time financial information very close to the end of the month. And yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity for businesses to really have no surprises. No surprises, no finding out six months later that somebody's been taking cash out of the business that shouldn't be, or you're spending money on a system that you didn't realize you were still spending money on, having getting that access to like, just give me a different window on what's happening in the financials of my business is huge and often missed by CEOs because they're just looking at the top line. They're not seeing what's going on underneath.

Megan - 00:26:40: Just to add to your point, like five or six years ago, I'd never even heard of a fractional CFO.

Colin - 00:26:46: Yeah.

Megan - 00:26:46: And now they're on the show all the time. And yeah, they're adding a lot of value to small businesses who, like you said, might not need a full time CFO, but need some guidance. So last question. But what is it that keeps you up at night as you look out into the future? Is there anything you're concerned about for either your either for Float or for your clients?

Colin - 00:27:13: Yeah, I mean, I'm optimistic actually about the future. I feel like we've come out of a pretty dark couple of years through COVID and this shift to remote working and the war. And we're maybe not out of the woods from all that, but I'm optimistic that we're getting, the world is becoming a better place. And I'm optimistic about some of the stuff that people are talking about in terms of moving into a better mental health state and businesses are realizing that it's not all about growth at all costs. It's not all about doubling every year. It could be, I can see what I need to do for this business to generate what it needs to generate for me. And we can have a good quality of life with that. So even seeing some businesses decide to downsize or reduce because they're happy. And yeah, so I'm optimistic. And probably the thing that keeps me awake at night is worrying about, am I getting enough sleep? I think I've started tracking it. I'm on one of these devices that I'm wearing and it kind of gamifies it, but it also makes me think about, yeah, if I'm lying awake at night, I need to hurry up and get to sleep so that I'm not tanking my sleep score.

Megan - 00:28:25: Yeah, that usually has the opposite effect. When you want to hurry up and get to sleep, you just lie there staring at the ceiling.

Colin - 00:28:32: Yeah, yeah.

Megan - 00:28:34: Colin, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Colin - 00:28:36: Thanks so much, Megan. Yeah, really good to chat to you.

Megan - 00:28:39: Yeah, I really enjoyed speaking with you. And thanks for taking the time to be here with us today to share your experience. And I wish you and Float all the best. Sounds like you're both doing some really amazing things.

Colin - 00:28:52: Thank you.

Megan - 00:28:53: And to all of our listeners, please tune in next week. And until then, take care.