$IT Cash Projections

The primary objective of $IT's Cash Projection function is to tell you how much cash you need on a daily basis to pay your bills. The information lets you decide:

• How much you can pay on your credit cards and loans.

• Whether there's enough money to pay non-optional bills like rent and utilities.

• How much money to transfer into your bill payment, savings and investment accounts.

• How much money you are going to need to pay future bills like car registration, real estate taxes, etc.

Here is a screen shot of one of the reports that provides this information:

Report explanation: You set the "As of" report date. Meaning how far out you want the report to go. For each payment account, in this case "Checking Account", you're shown the daily bills to be paid from the account and the remaining balance. The "Available Balance" amount turns red if the account goes negative. Then you need to find a way to turn it positive!

Below is a screen shot of the form that you use to generate the report. The payment dates are automatically generated by $IT based on the last payment date and the assigned payment recurrence of the account. You can add or delete an account, modify the payment date and amount, and the payment account.

Here is a screen shot of the Cash Projections Menu. The "Run Cash Projection Update" button runs the routine that calculates the payment dates shown on the above form. Clicking the "Edit Cash Projections" button opens the above form.

When you set up your Accounts, you designate whether the account is included in cash projections and the payment recurrence. The recurring options are: Annual, Bi-Monthly, Bi-Weekly, Daily, Monthly, One Time, Other, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, and Weekly. Here is a screen shot of Account set up.

Loan accounts are automatically included in Cash Projections when they are first set up in $IT. Below is an example of the set up form.

Clicking the Edit Payment Account Balance button brings up a form where you enter the amount of funds you have as an "As of Date." Disbursements and receipts are added or deducted to this balance to determine the amount of funds available and shown on the Cash Projections by Day Report displayed on this page for the payment account "Checking Account". Clicking the Computed Payment Account Balances button displays a report with the $IT computed balances. However, unless you are completely up to date in entering transactions, it is better to use the edit payment account balance option.

I have been using the cash projection capabilities of SIT for several years and has kept me from overdrawing my accounts numerous times.