The forecast the funder keeps asking for
Your client's finance director needs to know how much they will pay out each month for the next year, because their funding draws against it. At contract award you built a cash flow forecast: the contract sum spread over the programme, with an S-curve that looked sensible and a line for fees and client direct costs.
Then the programme slipped by six weeks on groundworks. Valuations came in lower than forecast for three months and higher for two. A revised programme was issued with a different sequence for the fit-out. The finance director asks for an updated forecast, and your surveyor realises the original spreadsheet was built around the old programme and cannot simply be nudged.
So they start again, with a new spread, a new curve and a note to the client explaining why the numbers moved.
Why cash flow forecasts decay so fast
- The spreadsheet spreads cost by month, not by programme activity, so a programme change breaks the logic.
- Actual certified values are typed in by hand each month, if they are added at all.
- Variations and anticipated final cost changes are not reflected in the remaining spend.
- Retention, fees and client direct costs are handled in separate tabs with their own assumptions.
- There is no record of what the forecast said last month, so explaining the movement is guesswork.
None of this reflects a lack of skill. A spreadsheet built for a snapshot is being asked to behave like a model.
What stale forecasts cost your client and you
The client's funding plans are built on numbers that no longer match the job. Draw requests are larger or smaller than they expected, which leads to difficult conversations with their lender or board. Your surveyors spend time rebuilding rather than advising. And the forecast becomes a document nobody quite trusts, which undermines the cost report that sits next to it.
| Input | How it is handled now | How the model handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Contract programme | Read once to set monthly spread | Imported, cost linked to activities |
| Programme revision | Forecast rebuilt | Remaining cost re-spread from new dates |
| Certified valuations | Typed in, sometimes | Pulled from the valuation record |
| Anticipated final cost | Separate report | Remaining spend follows it |
| Last month's forecast | Overwritten | Stored for comparison |
How we build a forecast that stays current
- The contract programme is imported from your planning tool's export, such as an XER or XML file from a scheduling package, or a structured Excel programme.
- The surveyor links cost to programme activities, at whatever level makes sense: by element, by package or by phase. The links are set once.
- Spend profiles per activity are chosen by the surveyor, for example level, front-loaded or back-loaded, reflecting how that work is really paid for.
- Certified values arrive from your valuation record each month and replace the forecast for past periods.
- When a revised programme is imported, the remaining cost is re-spread across the new dates, and the surveyor sees what changed before accepting it.
- Fees, retention and client direct costs sit in the same model with their own timing rules.
- Each month's forecast is saved, and a comparison with the previous one explains the movement by cause: programme, value or cost change.
What profile to use for a package, and how much confidence to place in a contractor's revised programme, are surveyor judgements. The model makes applying them fast and keeps the record.
The month after
When the programme moves, the surveyor imports the revision, reviews the re-spread and adjusts the profiles where their knowledge of the job says otherwise. The client gets an updated forecast with a short, generated explanation of what moved and why, which the surveyor edits into their own words. The finance director stops asking how reliable the numbers are, because the history is there to show.
Across several projects, the practice can also see a combined view of forecast spend for a client with a portfolio, which is often what their finance team really wants.
Signs your forecasts need this
- A programme revision means rebuilding the cash flow from scratch.
- Actual certified values are not reliably in the forecast.
- You cannot say what last month's forecast was without digging out an old file.
- The forecast and the cost report tell slightly different stories.
- Clients with several projects want a combined view you do not have.