Cash flow and liquidity planning. Integrated and tailored.

Planned from real data

A separate liquidity spreadsheet is only as good as the last time someone updated it. In kanbau, cash flow is calculated from what is already in the system: purchase contracts with contractors, sales contracts with buyers, incoming and outgoing invoices, bank accounts, loans and the construction schedule. You record contracts and invoices as part of your normal work – kanbau builds the cash flow statement from them.

What the cash flow is calculated from

Each project in kanbau holds its contracts, invoices, accounts and dates. Inflows come mainly from sales, outflows from purchasing and trades. The construction schedule provides the timing; loans and bank accounts complete the picture.

• Project units, contracts, cost plan and accounts of a development
• Sales and MaBV instalments inflows from instalments and outgoing invoices
• Purchasing and trades outflows from contracts, invoices and open budget values
• Construction schedule dates: tasks determine when instalments and payments fall due
• Loans drawdowns, repayment and interest
• Bank accounts opening balance and booked payments
• Forecast and balance balance per period, bank and account, with a warning before the low point

In detail, these building blocks go into the calculation:

• Bank accounts: the balance of the bank accounts is the opening balance. Booked payments are actuals.
• Invoices: open incoming and outgoing invoices appear on their due date.
• Sales and MaBV instalments: instalments from sales contracts that have not yet been invoiced are included as forecast – on the date given by the linked schedule task, weighted by their probability. MaBV is the German ordinance that ties buyer payments to construction progress. For units that are not yet sold, kanbau also includes expected revenue on a weighted basis.
• Purchasing and trades: the open amount of a purchase contract – contract sum minus amounts already invoiced – is spread over time according to its distribution profile.
• Budgeted but not yet awarded: for trades without a contract, the difference between cost plan and awarded amount is included as an expected outflow.
• Loans: drawdowns, repayment, interest and commitment fees.
• VAT: calculated monthly as a separate item.
• Recurring invoices such as rent, maintenance or licences.

Actuals and forecast

kanbau distinguishes three states. Booked payments on the bank accounts are actuals. Open invoices appear on their due date. Instalments and contracts without an invoice are forecast.

• Actual booked payments on the bank accounts
• Open invoice appears on its due date
• Forecast instalments and contracts without an invoice, date from the construction schedule

Over time, items move from forecast to actual: once an instalment is invoiced, the outgoing invoice replaces the forecast. Once the invoice is paid and the payment booked, it becomes an actual. An instalment is never counted twice.

Dates from the construction schedule

When an instalment or a contractor payment is due depends on construction progress. That is why you link instalments from sales contracts, instalments from purchase contracts and purchase contracts or trades to tasks in the construction schedule. Three settings give the payment date: the anchor (start or end of the task, by default the end), the offset in days up to the expected invoice and the payment term up to the payment. For sales contracts, kanbau uses the contract's payment term, or 14 days if none is set; for purchasing, the payment term of the purchase contract, otherwise the trade's default payment term, otherwise also 14 days.

You do not have to link every instalment by hand. Trades and payment plan templates carry a keyword for task names; kanbau uses it to assign contracts and instalments to the right task and applies the default anchor and offset. New sales contracts inherit task, anchor, offset and probability from the project payment plan. A date that is fixed can be locked; kanbau then no longer recalculates it.

Without a link, kanbau uses the contract dates for purchasing – acceptance or end of works plus offset – and otherwise the project dates for acceptance or completion. For sales, it uses the notary date plus a flat period. If none of these dates exists, kanbau uses today's date and shows a warning that takes you to the record concerned.

Probability: weighting expected revenue

Instalments from sales contracts and items in the project payment plan carry a probability in percent. The forecast uses the weighted amount, i.e. amount times probability. Purchasing counts at 100 percent.

• Instalment from the project payment plan: €240,000, probability 75 % The forecast shows €180,000.
• Shell construction contract: open amount €400,000 Purchasing counts at 100 %, the forecast shows €400,000.

The amounts in this example are made up. The frame shows the full amount, the fill the share used in the forecast.

Distribution profiles for purchasing and trades

How the open amount of a purchase contract is spread over time is set by its distribution profile. The default comes from the trade; each contract can deviate.

• Linear Evenly across the months from the start of the task to the payment date.
• Milestones According to the instalments of the purchase contract. Amounts already invoiced cover the instalments in order; an uncovered remainder, for example from change orders, is placed at the end.
• Final invoice One amount on the payment date.

The dashed line marks the payment date, the pink bar an uncovered remainder. Only the open amount is distributed; what has already been invoiced appears as an invoice and is not planned twice.

Loans and development finance

In the loan record you enter volume, term, interest and repayment as well as commitment fee and fee-free period, the required pre-sales ratio, equity contribution and guarantee facilities. In the cash flow, kanbau spreads drawdowns over the term and ties them to the pre-sales ratio. Repayment from sales proceeds follows the payment dates of the sales instalments, so the construction schedule indirectly affects repayment too. Interest and commitment fees are included.

Bank accounts and allocation

Opening balance and actuals come from banking. kanbau fetches account transactions every night and matches them to invoices. Each expected payment is assigned to a bank account: from the invoice, otherwise from the contract, otherwise from the project account for income or expenses. If none is set, the payment appears as “not assigned”.

The overview, warnings and updates

You choose a period, for example 90 days. The overview shows the forecast closing balance with a note on whether coverage holds for the whole period, expected receivables compared with the past, and liabilities. Below, the upcoming cash flows are listed with date, forecast or actual, title, project or company, bank account, category and amount. A warning icon marks items whose basis you should check. Further views show the forecast per day up to per year with a detailed calculation per period, and liquidity per bank and account.

The cash flow works on a saved state. “Update figures” recalculates it – actuals and plan, actuals only or plan only – and kanbau also recalculates every night. A change to a contract or a schedule task therefore takes effect at the next update, at the latest overnight.

More background in our article on liquidity planning and cash flow (in German).

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