A 30-day cash calendar is not a polished forecast for the board. It is a working sheet that lists expected receipts and unavoidable payments by week, then forces a ranking when the two do not meet.
Start with known deposits: customer receipts already invoiced, known government refunds, and any owner injections already decided. Then list non-negotiable outflows — wages, essential materials, insurance, and critical loan instalments. Everything else waits until the gaps are visible.
Owners often discover that three discretionary costs — a vehicle lease they barely use, a marketing retainer with little return, or a slow-moving stock order — free more cash than another round of supplier apologies. The calendar makes those trade-offs concrete.
Update the sheet every Friday. Recovery work fails when the calendar becomes a one-off document. Treat it as the owner’s weekly brief, not a consultant’s deliverable that gathers dust.