Cash Runway (Operate)

Overview

Build the 13-week direct-method cash forecast - the operator's near-term liquidity view. Schedule the known weekly receipts and disbursements, show the raw cash position (no automatic LOC draws), and report the trough and first negative week.

Core principle: Show the unfinanced position. A visible shortfall is the whole point - it sizes the credit line.

When to use

• "When do we run out of money?" / runway questions
• Sizing or stress-testing a working-capital line
• Lumpy near-term cash events (inventory buys, tax, payroll cadence)

Workflow

1. Discover the company command. Run

openfpa entrypoint-list <company-root> --kind cash. Use the registered cash workflow when one exists.

1. Build the schedule as a Cash13Config: opening_cash, weeks (default 13), and receipts/disbursements lists of WeeklyFlow(name, amount, start_week, recurrence). Recurrence is once, weekly, or biweekly. Model what you actually know: AR collections on their expected weeks, payroll on its cadence, inventory POs on their due dates, quarterly tax.
2. Forecast:

   import pyfpa
   from pyfpa.io.loaders import load_cash13_config
   weekly = pyfpa.cash13_forecast(load_cash13_config("examples/ridgeline/cash13.yaml"))
   runway = pyfpa.runway_summary(weekly)
   # {'min_cash': -146000.0, 'min_week': 7, 'first_negative_week': 3}

1. Interpret (see fpa-cfo-judgment): a negative min_cash means "needs a draw of at least this much," not "insolvent." first_negative_week is the deadline to act. Size the credit line to the trough plus a buffer.
2. Report: trough amount + week, first-negative week, and the recommended line size / action.

Common mistakes

• Smoothing monthly numbers into weeks instead of scheduling the real lumpy items - the lumps are the signal.
• Auto-covering the shortfall with a draw and hiding the gap. Don't; show it.

Next

Feed runway into fpa-board-briefing for the writeup.