Worked example — from plan to decision

This example uses synthetic amounts to illustrate the workflow. It is not a seeded company or an instruction to enter these figures into your own books. The simplified arithmetic assumes the stated activity is the whole scope; real reports retain their own coverage and accounting limitations.

Establish the starting point

Suppose starting cash at the end of August is $500,000. Review the supporting statement identity and opening journals, then reconcile them in /progress. Review coverage of each cash account through the actuals cutoff.

The initial forecast has $100,000 of receipts and $150,000 of spending in both September and October:

Amounts alone are not sufficient inputs. The application needs the actual evidence, reviewed drivers, dates and approved accounting templates behind them.

Preserve the goal and plan

In /goals, create an October ending-cash target of $400,000. Add a second active goal to keep each September and October month-end at or above $350,000. Choose the October target as primary.

If preserving the product team is a business constraint, record it as a manual condition. Review the outlook and preserve the plan under these goal versions.

The initial forecast meets both numerical targets. Whether its assurance is complete depends on the actual evidence controls; the table itself proves nothing about coverage.

Receive only part of the expected payment

Capture the September $100,000 obligation before its event. When a $60,000 payment arrives, post its actual journal and allocate $60,000 to that expectation in /reconciliation.

The application now has $60,000 of actual receipts plus a $40,000 remaining expectation. Do not retain an independent $100,000 forecast on top of the payment, and do not mark the obligation final if another installment is still expected.

See Forecast settlement for the actual allocation controls.

Review the delayed remainder

If the remaining $40,000 is now expected in November, revise the obligation’s expected date with a reason. It stays the same obligation; the current forecast changes its timing.

Holding the other assumptions constant, September cash becomes $410,000 and October cash becomes $360,000. The business is $40,000 short of the October target while still above the $350,000 month-end floor.

The approved plan stays at its original $400,000 October result. The change explanation records how the current path differs. The partial payment is not scored as a completed zero or short-payment accuracy observation.

Compare a spending decision

Create a scenario that moves $50,000 of discretionary October spending to November. Keep the original obligation and later-month consequences explicit.

In /goal-decisions, preview the scenario against the approved plan and all active goals. With the simplified assumptions here, October cash rises from $360,000 to $410,000: $10,000 above the target. November inherits the postponed payment, so the full-horizon review still matters.

Assess the manual condition with a supporting reason. A $50,000 cash improvement does not prove that the team is preserved. Save an evaluation, or approve and apply the reviewed changes when their controls pass.

Preserve accountability and learn later

Prepare a financial report in /reviews. Assign exceptions and a reviewer, resolve or explicitly accept outstanding limitations, submit it, and sign the current snapshot. A founder signing their own preparation must acknowledge self-review.

After the obligation finally settles, compare its actual completion with a pre-event preserved forecast. A snapshot saved after payment cannot manufacture a prediction history.

Review the applied decision’s later outcome as well. Subsequent imports, other decisions and changes in assumptions are included; the outcome report does not isolate causation.