Liquidity Planning

Finalert helps you set that buffer deliberately, measure how much room is left on your borrowing and your covenants, and write down the actions you would take at each level of stress. The point is that when a squeeze arrives, the decisions have already been thought through and nobody is improvising in a board meeting.

A liquidity plan replaces that with numbers people agreed in advance. A minimum operating balance based on your actual outflow pattern, not a round number. Runway measured against a downside case rather than the plan. Known headroom on every facility. Covenant ratios tested forward rather than at the quarter end. And a short list of levers, in the order you would pull them.

Liquidity planning is the policy layer that sits above cash forecasting. A forecast tells you what the balance is likely to be. A liquidity plan tells you how much you have decided to keep, how much borrowing capacity you are holding in reserve, how close you are to the limits in your loan agreements, and what happens when any of those move against you. Finalert helps you set those numbers, monitor them, and write them into something your board and your lender can read.

We start by measuring what the business actually consumes. Weekly outflow at its peak, not its average. The payroll dates, tax dates and debt service dates that cannot move. Seasonal working capital swings. Concentration in your receivables, because one slow payer can matter more than a bad month. Out of that comes a minimum operating balance and a buffer above it, both expressed as a number of weeks of outflow so they stay meaningful as the business grows.

Buffers, headroom and covenants

Your buffer policy sets three levels: the balance you plan to hold, the level at which the finance team acts, and the level at which the decision goes to leadership. Each level has actions attached to it. Facility headroom is tracked alongside it, so you know at any point how much of your revolver or line is genuinely available after borrowing base limits, outstanding letters of credit and any blocked amounts are taken into account.

Covenants are tested forward rather than discovered at the reporting date. We model the ratios in your loan agreements against your plan and against a downside case, and show the month where headroom is thinnest. If a covenant looks tight, the conversation with your lender happens months ahead with a proposal attached, which is a materially different conversation from the one that starts after a breach has already been reported.

Levers and funding options

When pressure arrives, the useful thing is a ranked list of actions with the cash each one releases and the time it takes. A collections push on the ten largest overdue accounts. Payment timing moved within terms rather than beyond them. Deferring or staging capital spend. Slowing discretionary hiring. Reviewing inventory commitments. We size each lever for your business so the list is a plan rather than a set of general suggestions.

Funding options are mapped against the same calendar: what facility capacity exists, what an increase would require, what asset-based or receivables financing would look like, and how long each takes to arrange. Lead time is the whole point, because the cheapest funding is arranged before it is needed. Finalert prepares the analysis and runs the process; your leadership owns the decisions and any agreement with a lender. We do not sign filings, issue audit or attest opinions, give legal advice, or act as your accountant of record.