Cash Intelligence
A forward view of liquidity for carve-outs and PE-backed businesses
Cash exposure can rapidly become a binding constraint in carve-outs and newly independent businesses when shared infrastructure disappears and TSA transitional arrangements introduce complexity. Management attention is stretched just as the organisation is expected to operate as a stand-alone entity, and the discipline required to manage liquidity increases precisely when the systems and processes to support it are weakest.
The structural problem
Most finance platforms are designed to explain the past. They produce management accounts and statutory reports efficiently, but struggle to answer the question that matters most to investors, lenders and boards: what will happen to cash over the coming weeks and months?
The problem is rarely a lack of competence. It is structural. Finance teams in mid-market businesses are typically lean and focused on reporting. Their capacity is absorbed by close processes, compliance and investor reporting. Forward-looking cash forecasting, where it exists at all, is often spreadsheet-based, manual and quickly overtaken by events.
Visibility is further undermined by fragmented data. Receivables and payables sit in accounting systems, operational commitments sit elsewhere, and future obligations are tracked inconsistently. The result is familiar: businesses that appear profitable on paper operate with persistent anxiety around liquidity and funding headroom.
What Cash Intelligence does
Cash Intelligence is not an accounting system, nor a replacement for ERP or FP&A tools. It is a focused, forward-looking cash layer that sits above existing systems, concentrating on a single objective: providing a clear and credible view of future liquidity.
| Core element | Action | Outcome |
| Current cash position | Establishes a single, live view of cash and available facilities | Decisions are grounded in a shared and reliable understanding of liquidity |
| Receivables insight | Directs attention to collection risk and customer payment behaviour | Cash inflows become predictable rather than assumed |
| Payables and commitments | Makes supplier obligations and payment timing explicit | Outflows are actively managed rather than discovered late |
| Operational cash drivers | Connects orders, production and work-in-progress to future cash movement | Growth is understood in cash terms, not just revenue |
| Unavoidable obligations | Schedules payroll and statutory payments by their true due dates | Known liabilities no longer trigger last-minute shocks |
| Financing movements | Tracks facility usage, debt service and funding headroom | Lender relationships are managed from a position of control |
| Forward cash view | Identifies pinch points and minimum cash positions in advance | Management gains time to act, rather than react under pressure |
How it works
The approach is sequential and practical.
First, establish if there is an issue. Understand today’s cash balance, the status of receivables and payables, and the immediate shape of the sales and purchase order books to determine the likely cash burn rate. What is required initially is not a report, but a number. The question is binary: is there a liquidity issue, or not?
Second, shift attention to the near future. Using tools such as Phocas, accounts receivable and accounts payable data are extracted and monitored continuously. From this, a rolling 13-week forward view is constructed—long enough to expose pressure points, short enough to remain credible.
Third, bring unavoidable cash flows explicitly into view. Payroll, VAT, PAYE, corporation tax, debt service and capital commitments are scheduled on their actual due dates. These are not forecasts; they are facts.
Fourth, expose the working-capital reality. Rather than relying on abstract “normalised” calculations, the tool shows how much working capital the business actually requires, and when. Growth, supplier terms, inventory and work-in-progress are translated into time-based cash demand.
Finally, once the data has proved itself, modelling becomes useful. With a credible forward view in place, management can stress-test scenarios—late customer payments, volume changes, tightening supplier terms or delayed funding—and act while options remain available.
The system also captures secondary cash movements that frequently undermine confidence: capital-expenditure phasing, VAT and corporation tax settlements, dividend and shareholder distributions, inventory build and release, prepayments and deferred-income unwind, foreign-exchange settlement timing, transitional service charges, and one-off separation or restructuring costs.
Why it matters
For investors, weak cash visibility rarely manifests as a single dramatic failure. It shows up through delayed recognition, narrowing options and conversations that arrive too late. In transitional environments, liquidity rarely disappears without warning. More often, it ebbs quietly, masked by reported performance, until choices narrow.
Cash Intelligence exists to ensure that this process is visible—and manageable—long before it becomes acute.
Implementation
Cash Intelligence is delivered through a fixed, time-boxed implementation followed by an ongoing licence. Typical engagements involve a one-off setup fee from £10,000, covering system connection, establishment of the initial cash position and delivery of the first credible 13-week view. Ongoing use is supported through a monthly licence from £1,000, which maintains the forward cash view and embeds the operating discipline over time.
The intention is clarity and control, not dependency: a defined capability that becomes part of how the business is run.