Why we Built the PeakRatio Forecast Tool (And What It Actually Does)
Years of working inside and alongside founder-led businesses teaches you something: the same problems show up again and again. Not because the people running the businesses are not capable, but because the tools they had access to were not built for their situation.
Cash flow was almost always on the list. Not the concept of it, but the practical, day-to-day management of it: knowing when money was coming in, planning for when it was not, understanding what the next 90 days actually looked like beyond the bank balance.
I built the PeakRatio Forecast Tool to give SME owners that forward view. This article explains what it covers, why each part is there, and who it is built for.
The pattern that prompted it
The cash flow problems I have seen in SME businesses tend to cluster around the same handful of issues. Businesses that are profitable on paper but consistently short of cash. Owners who cannot answer the question: how many weeks could we trade without new revenue coming in? Tax bills that arrive without warning because no reserve was built for them. Invoices going out on time, but money arriving weeks later than expected because the chase process is informal and inconsistent.
None of these are unusual. None are signs of a failing business. They are signs of a business that does not have a clear forward view of its cash position, and is making decisions based on incomplete information.
The fix is not complex. It is a well-structured tool that pulls the right information together in one place.
What the tool covers
The PeakRatio Forecast Tool is a seven-tab Excel workbook. Each tab addresses a specific part of the cash picture.
Pipeline
Where your confirmed and forecast revenue lives, broken down by month. If you can see what is coming in before it lands, you can plan around it. If you cannot, you are reacting.
Payment Schedule
Revenue in the pipeline is not the same as cash in the account. The payment schedule tracks when each invoice is expected to clear, and flags anything that has gone overdue. This is where debtor management starts.
Overheads and Expenses
Fixed and variable costs, planned by month. Salary runs, supplier payments, subscriptions, professional fees. The clarity of knowing what goes out, and when, is the other side of the cash equation.
Asset Register
A record of business assets, their values, and depreciation. Useful for director-level reporting and for understanding the true financial picture beyond the P&L.
Compliance
VAT quarters, Corporation Tax payment dates, PAYE schedules. These are predictable liabilities with known due dates. Building them into the cash plan means they are never a surprise. This tab puts them in the same view as everything else.
Cashflow Forecast
A 15-month rolling forecast drawing from the pipeline, payment schedule, overheads, and compliance tabs. This is the forward view that changes how decisions get made. Not what is in the account today, but what the position will be in six, nine, twelve weeks.
Dashboard
Everything in one place. The dashboard is designed to replace the bank balance as the primary decision-making view. A director-level summary of where the business stands and where it is heading.
Who it is for
The tool is built for SME owners who want to understand their cash position without relying on an accountant to produce the answer. It requires no specialist software beyond Excel, and is designed to be set up and run by the business owner.
It suits businesses in the £500k to £5m turnover range that have outgrown informal cash management but have not yet reached the point where a full-time finance function is warranted. The seven-tab structure is comprehensive enough to give a real picture, and simple enough to maintain without dedicated resource.
What the tool does not do
The tool gives you visibility. It does not give you the interpretation of what you are seeing, or a plan for what to do about it.
If the numbers are in the dashboard and they still do not feel clear, or if there is a pattern that prompts a question you are not sure how to answer, that is the point at which an advisor adds value. PeakRatio works directly with SME owners to build the financial picture, identify where the highest-leverage improvements sit, and put a credible plan behind them.
The tool is available from Resources page. If you would prefer to work through the numbers with an advisor from the start, visit our contact page to start a conversation.
