Restaurant 13-Week Cash Flow Model — Treasury View for Operators
Most restaurant P&Ls tell you what already happened. This model tells you what's coming.The Restaurant 13-Week Cash Flow Model is the treasury view chain-restaurant CFOs and multi-unit operators rely on every Monday morning — now built for the single-unit and small-multi operator. It takes your weekly numbers, runs them through the same working-capital and debt-service mechanics a controller would use, and tells you which week of the next quarter is going to put you in a hole.Built by a former restaurant chain CFO with 15+ years of multi-unit experience. Every formula visible. No macros. Nothing locked.---WHAT'S INSIDE — 7 TABS, 1,029 FORMULASDashboard. One screen. Your starting cash, ending cash, lowest week, weeks below minimum, weeks of covenant breach. Print it, hand it to your GM, end of meeting.Read Me. Plain-language operator instructions. The model in 90 seconds.Inputs. Every assumption that drives the model. Restaurant profile, weekly sales plan, seasonality index, COGS by category, fully-loaded labor (hourly + salary + payroll burden), 12 operating-expense lines, occupancy, working-capital days, debt service, capex by week, and your lender covenant minimums. Defaults are pre-loaded for a $1.8M casual concept — change one cell at a time and watch the model react.Weekly Model. The 13-week sales-to-EBITDA roll. Sales decomposed by channel (dine-in, takeout, delivery, catering). Delivery commission netted out so you see the cash that actually arrives. COGS by category. Labor fully loaded, including payroll burden. Prime cost calculated and displayed as a percentage. Operating expenses, occupancy, percentage rent if your lease has it. 4-wall EBITDA out the bottom.Working Capital. AR days, AP days, inventory days converted into weekly cash impact. Most operator forecasts skip this — and it's exactly where the surprise lives.Cash Flow Rollup. Beginning cash → operating cash → capex → debt service → ending cash. Every week. Negative-cash weeks flagged in red. Below-minimum weeks flagged in red. The bottom of the page is the question every operator and every lender wants answered: are we going to make it.Covenants. DSCR, fixed-charge coverage, and leverage tracked against your lender minimums. PASS / BREACH on every week. If you have an SBA loan or bank facility, this is the section you forward to your relationship banker before they ask.---WHO THIS IS FOR- Independent and multi-unit restaurant operators with a bank facility, SBA loan, or equipment financing- Operators who have been blindsided by a slow week and want to see the next one coming- Restaurant CFOs and controllers who need a faster weekly treasury cycle than monthly close gives them- Anyone preparing a 13-week cash forecast for a lender, board, or refinancing conversationIf you've ever sat through a Monday morning meeting wondering whether payroll on Friday is actually going to clear, this is the spreadsheet that answers it.---WHAT THIS IS NOTThis isn't a P&L template. The Restaurant Finance Toolkit (also on this storefront) is the right starting point for operators who want a full set of operating templates — monthly P&L, food cost, labor scheduling, break-even. The 13-Week Cash Flow Model is the next layer up: the treasury and lender-facing view that sits on top of your operating P&L.If you're new to restaurant finance, start with the $67 Toolkit. If you're already running your numbers and you need the weekly cash view, this is for you.---HOW IT'S DIFFERENTWeekly, not monthly. Most cash forecasts a small operator can buy are 12-month monthly views. By the time a monthly model warns you about a problem, payroll has already missed.Working capital is a first-class citizen. AR / AP / inventory days are not afterthoughts — they're a full tab. A typical month where COGS look fine on paper but vendors got paid early can move cash by $30,000.Covenants are built in. DSCR, FCC, and leverage are tracked weekly against your lender minimums. If you have a covenant, you have something to defend in a quarterly call. The model gives you 13 weeks of advance notice.Built by an operator. Every formula is visible. Every comment is written by someone who has sat in the chair, not by a Big Four template factory.---TECHNICAL NOTES- Excel 2016 or later, Mac or Windows. Works in Google Sheets with minor formatting drift.- No VBA. No macros. No add-ins.- All formulas unlocked. Adjust line items, add departments, change accounting categories.- 1,029 formulas. Zero errors.- Inputs are color-coded: blue text = change me, black text = don't, green text = pulled from another tab, yellow shading = key assumption.---100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE30 days. No questions. If the model doesn't earn its $79 back inside your first weekly cash review, email me and I'll refund you. The math should pay for itself.---FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONSWill this work for my concept?Yes. The model is concept-agnostic on inputs — fine dining, fast casual, QSR, coffee, bar concept, ghost kitchen, multi-unit. Sales decomposition lets you set your channel mix. Labor section handles tipped, non-tipped, salary, and burden. Defaults are loaded for a casual dining table-service unit; the only thing concept-specific in the defaults is the labor mix, which you can change in two cells.Do I need to be a finance person to use this?No. The Read Me tab walks you through it in five steps. Yellow-shaded cells on the Inputs tab tell you exactly where to type. Everything else is read-only output. If you can fill in a monthly P&L, you can run this model.How long does it take to set up with my numbers?About 30 minutes for a first pass. After that, weekly updates take ten minutes.Will this satisfy a bank or SBA lender asking for a 13-week cash forecast?Yes. The structure — weekly sales, COGS, labor, opex, occupancy, working capital, capex, debt service, DSCR, FCC — is exactly the format a bank workout team or an SBA credit officer expects to see. The covenant tab maps directly to the standard credit-agreement definitions.Can I customize the line items?Yes. All formulas are unlocked. Add operating-expense lines, remove a labor category, add a capex schedule — every formula references inputs and will recalculate.
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