How much cash will I have in 30 days?

Why your 30-day cash forecast is the number that keeps you alive

You have $47,000 in the bank right now. Feels comfortable. But payroll hits in 12 days ($32,000), rent is due on the first ($4,800), your quarterly insurance premium posts next week ($3,200), and that vendor invoice you've been sitting on is past due. Suddenly $47,000 doesn't feel like much.

Meanwhile, you have $28,000 in outstanding invoices. But two of them are from clients who routinely pay 15 days late. Will that money arrive before payroll clears?

This is why cash-in-the-bank is misleading. It tells you where you are, not where you're headed. A 30-day cash forecast tells you whether you'll have enough money to cover the bills that are actually coming. And if the answer is no, it gives you time to act before you're scrambling.

What goes into a 30-day cash forecast

A cash forecast is not a report you can pull with one click. It's a calculation built from three inputs:

• Starting cash. Your current bank balance. This should come from your accounting software, not your banking app, because it needs to account for pending transactions.
• Cash in (next 30 days).Open invoices that are due within 30 days, expected recurring revenue, and any other confirmed incoming payments. Be conservative here. If a client is routinely late, don't assume they'll pay on time.
• Cash out (next 30 days). Payroll, rent, loan payments, vendor invoices, subscriptions, insurance, taxes, and any other known expenses. Check your bills payable and recurring expenses for a complete picture.

The formula is simple: Starting cash + Cash in - Cash out = Projected cash in 30 days. The hard part is gathering accurate inputs.

How to forecast your 30-day cash position in QuickBooks Online (6 steps)

QuickBooks does not have a built-in 30-day cash forecast. You need to pull data from several reports and combine them in a spreadsheet.

1. 1
   Get your current cash balance

   Go to Reports, search for “Balance Sheet,” and run it as of today. Look at “Total Bank Accounts” under Current Assets. Write this number down.

2. 2
   Find expected incoming cash

   Go to Reportsand search for “A/R Aging Summary.” This shows all outstanding invoices grouped by age. Focus on the “Current” and “1-30 days” columns. These are invoices likely to be paid within 30 days.

3. 3
   Estimate outgoing cash

   Go to Reportsand search for “A/P Aging Summary.” This shows bills you owe. Also check your recurring transactions: go to the Gear icon → Recurring Transactions to see scheduled payments like payroll, rent, and subscriptions.

4. 4
   Check the Statement of Cash Flows for context

   In Reports, search for “Statement of Cash Flows.” Run it for last month. This shows your actual cash movement pattern and helps you spot expenses you might have missed.

5. 5
   Build a simple spreadsheet

   Open a spreadsheet. Column A: today's cash balance. Column B: total expected receivables (from step 2). Column C: total expected payables and recurring expenses (from step 3). Column D: A + B - C. That's your projected cash in 30 days.

6. 6
   Stress-test the number

   What if two of your biggest invoices pay 15 days late? Remove them from Column B and recalculate. If the number goes negative, you have a potential cash gap.

How to forecast your 30-day cash position in Xero (5 steps)

Xero has a built-in short-term cash flow projection that gives you a head start, but it only looks at existing invoices and bills. You still need to account for recurring expenses it might miss.

1. 1
   Open the short-term cash flow tool

   From the top menu, click Business, then select Short-term cash flow. In the top-right corner, switch the projection timeframe to “30 days.”

2. 2
   Review the projection summary

   The top-left shows your balance today, invoices owed to you, bills you need to pay, and your projected balance. This is a good starting point.

3. 3
   Check for gaps in the projection

   Xero's tool only uses existing invoices and bills. If you have recurring expenses that aren't entered as bills yet (like payroll or subscriptions), they won't appear. Go to Accounting → Reports → Profit and Loss for last month to see what regular expenses you need to add.

4. 4
   Adjust for late payers

   Xero lets you edit the expected payment dates for overdue invoices directly in the projection. If you know a client typically pays late, adjust their date to be realistic.

5. 5
   Add one-off amounts

   Use Xero's “Add adjustment” feature to include expected expenses that aren't in the system yet, like a tax payment or equipment purchase.

What it takes to forecast cash every month

The first time you build a 30-day forecast, it takes 20-30 minutes. After that, updating it monthly is faster if you keep your spreadsheet template. But here's what tends to happen:

• You need to do it weekly, not monthly.Cash changes fast. A forecast from the first of the month is stale by the 15th. If you want real visibility, you're updating this every week.
• Assumptions drift.You assume a client will pay on time. They don't. Now your forecast is wrong and you didn't find out until payroll bounced. The forecast is only as good as your assumptions.
• It's easy to miss something.A quarterly tax payment, an annual insurance renewal, a vendor invoice you haven't opened yet. The expenses you forget to include are usually the ones that create the cash crunch.

Or get your 30-day cash forecast automatically

Bottomline connects to your QuickBooks or Xero account and builds your cash forecast automatically. It pulls your current balance, open receivables, upcoming payables, and recurring expenses into a single projection:

The key difference: Bottomline doesn't just add up the numbers. It looks at payment history to flag clients who are likely to pay late, and it includes recurring expenses that might not be entered as bills yet. You get a realistic projection, not an optimistic one.