Building a finance plan for the next 12 months, one quarter at a time

Most owners plan the year around revenue: a number they’d like to hit. Cash doesn’t care about that number. It cares about dates. The BAS lands on a Monday whether or not the big invoice has been paid, and the overdraft comes up for review whether or not you’re ready.

A finance plan for the next 12 months turns those dates into a map. It isn’t a forecast you frame; it’s a working document that tells you which months are comfortable, which are tight, and what you’ll do about the tight ones before they arrive.

Where do I start: sales or dates?

Start with dates. Sales are a hope; the payments below are certainties, and they shape the year more than most owners expect. List every one that falls between now and October 2027:

• BAS and GST. Quarterly lodgers have fixed due dates; monthly lodgers face one every month. The ATO due dates page lists them.
• PAYG withholding and instalments, which often ride on the same lodgements.
• Super. Payday Super began on 1 July 2026, so for most employers super now moves with each pay run instead of sitting in a quarterly lump. That smooths the peak but removes a cushion: money you once held for weeks now leaves sooner.
• Income tax for the company, trust or your own return, including any instalment catch-up.
• Loan, lease and rent dates, including annual reviews, rent increases and any balloon payments.
• Insurance renewals, which often arrive as one large annual premium.
• Known lumps: the ute due for replacement, the lease expiring, the software contract renewing.

Put each in a month column. Already you can see the shape of the year, and it rarely matches the shape of your sales.

How do I build the monthly picture?

Use last year’s bank statements as the skeleton. Twelve months of real deposits and withdrawals beat any projection built from memory. Then adjust.

Line	Where it comes from	What to adjust
Money in	Last year’s deposits by month	Price rises, lost customers, new contracts, seasonality
Wages and super	Payroll reports	Planned hires, award increases, leave
Fixed costs	Rent, insurance, software, repayments	Renewals and step-ups
Variable costs	Stock, materials, subcontractors	Volume changes, supplier increases
Tax	BAS and income tax calendar	Expected profit, instalment changes
One-offs	Your list of known lumps	Timing, and whether they can slip

Work to the day money actually lands, not the invoice date. If customers pay in 45 days, October sales are November and December cash. Our guide to a 13-week cash flow forecast covers the short-range, week-by-week version, and it pairs well with this longer view.

How do I find the three tightest months?

Run the closing balance month by month and colour each one:

1. Comfortable: balance stays above your minimum buffer (a month of fixed costs is a common starting point).
2. Tight: it dips below the buffer but stays positive.
3. Short: it goes negative.

Most businesses discover two or three tight months and perhaps one short one, and they usually cluster around a tax quarter, a seasonal low or a heavy spending month. This is the single most valuable output of the exercise, because each tight month gets a named fix.

If you want to test how long the business could run through a rough patch, the cash runway calculator turns your buffer and monthly burn into a number of months.

What can I do about each tight month?

There’s a ladder of responses, and it pays to climb from the bottom:

• Move the date. Ask a supplier for 14 days, bring forward a deposit invoice, delay a purchase by a month. Free, but limited. See negotiating better supplier terms.
• Use your own cash. Build the buffer in the good months. Setting up a cash buffer shows a sensible way to do it.
• Speed up collections. Shorter payment terms and prompt follow-up pull cash forward. The business.gov.au cash flow page lists pricing, collections and costs as the main levers.
• Borrow short for a short gap. A line of credit or overdraft you only draw when needed, ideally put in place before the tight month.
• Match a longer need with a longer product. If the gap is really growth spending, a term loan or asset finance fits better than a revolving facility.

The mistake is skipping straight to the last rung in the tightest week. By then your options are narrower and your leverage is lower.

Which dates is everyone forgetting?

Three that don’t appear in most plans, and that quietly cause trouble:

Facility renewals. An overdraft or line of credit that’s up for review is a date, and so is a loan reaching the end of its term. Under the 2025 Banking Code of Practice, a subscribing bank must give a small business at least three months’ notice if it decides not to extend a facility that isn’t in default. Three months is not a long time to find a replacement, so diarise the review at least six months out and check your numbers a quarter before.

ATO credit card payments. The ATO will stop accepting credit cards after 30 November 2026. If a card was your emergency way of covering a BAS, that safety net is going, and the plan needs a different one.

Lender paperwork. If you’ll borrow in the year, your financials, BAS and bank statements need to be current. A plan that says “apply in March” should also say “get the accountant’s figures by January”. The documents that speed up a business loan lists what’s usually asked for.

How should a finance plan treat growth spending?

Separate “keeping the lights on” from “growing”. Put growth projects, such as a second site, a hire or new equipment, in their own block with their own funding line. That makes it obvious whether the business can carry them from cash flow or needs external funding, and it stops a growth decision quietly eating the buffer the tight months need.

Before committing, read when to borrow to grow. A good test is whether the project still works if the first three months of benefit arrive late.

A worked example

Here’s an illustration, not a real client. A landscaping company with eight staff in Brisbane maps its year. The forecast shows steady cash for most months, but three pinch points:

• January: after Christmas, quieter work, a quarterly BAS and a big insurance renewal.
• April: a new ute is due, and the tax instalment resets.
• August: the winter lull, with wages and super unchanged.

For each, the owner writes a fix. January: build a buffer in November and December, and spread the insurance across monthly payments. April: finance the ute through equipment finance rather than paying cash, so the buffer stays intact. August: put a modest line of credit in place in the spring, when the accounts look strong, and plan to use it only if needed.

None of it is dramatic. It’s a few decisions made in October instead of in a panic in August.

How often should I review the plan?

Quarterly, and after any large event: a lost customer, a major contract, a new hire, a change in rent. Replace forecast months with actuals, push the horizon out another quarter so you always see twelve months ahead, and ask the same three questions each time. What changed? Which months are now tight? What is the next fix due?

Share the plan with your accountant or bookkeeper once or twice a year. They see patterns across many clients and will often spot a tax timing issue you’ve missed.

When does it make sense to talk to a lender?

When the plan shows a gap you can’t close with timing, buffer and collections, or when it shows a growth project that needs funding. In both cases, the best time to have the conversation is when the numbers still look healthy.

If your plan has flagged a pinch point and you’d like to know what’s realistic, an enquiry through our form takes about a minute, and asking doesn’t involve a credit check, so your file stays as it is. We don’t spread your details across a long list of lenders. A real person reads what you’ve submitted, thinks about the fit, and phones you. Fill it in as accurately as you can, with the amount, the timing and what it’s for, so the first option we suggest is the right one.

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