Use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online

Learn how to use the cash flow planner in QuickBooks Online to forecast your income and expenses.

Through the cash flow planner, you can forecast money in and out of your business. This way, you can keep track of your cash flow. You can also add and adjust future items to see how certain changes affect your cash flow. Here’s how to set up the planner and create, edit, or delete items.

Changing items won’t affect your books. This helps you make informed decisions about when to save, spend, borrow, and transfer money. Here’s how to set up the planner, and create, edit, or delete items.

Note: The cash flow planner isn’t available in QuickBooks Online Accountant and in all other versions if Multicurrency is on.

Set up your account

To set up your planner, connect your bank and credit card accounts. This way, you can use the data from your accounts in all QuickBooks.

Manage items

Add, edit, or delete items in the planner for potential income and expenses. You can also create repeating items to make planning even easier. Here’s how.

Note: Items in the planner aren't actual transactions. They won’t appear in your books.

Add an item

1. Go to Dashboards and select Planner (Take me there).
   Note: If it’s your first time, select Start planning, then select Let’s go.
2. Select Add item.
3. Select Money in if the item is income, or Money out if it's an expense.
4. Give the item a name in the Description and enter an amount in Amount.
   Note: If it’s a recurring item, select Repeating. Then select how often the item repeats.
5. Select Save.

If you want to export your cash flow details, from the Download Report ▼ dropdown, select Export as CSV or Save as PDF or Export to Excel.

Edit an item

You can easily edit or delete items to see how that changes your cash flow display.

To edit or delete items:

1. Go to Dashboards and select Planner (Take me there).
2. Select the item you want to edit.
3. Edit the info.
4. Select Update to save your changes.

Note: Changing items won’t affect your books. This helps you make informed decisions about when to save, spend, borrow, and transfer money.

Delete an item

1. Go to Dashboards and select Planner (Take me there).
2. Select the item you want to delete.
3. To delete a non-repeating item, select Remove, then Remove to confirm.
4. To delete a repeating item, select Remove, then
   • Select Only item to delete that single item in the series.
   • Select Entire series, then Confirm to delete all repeating items.

Customise your planner

1. Go to Dashboards, then select Planner (Take me there).
2. On the planner page, select the gear ⚙ icon.
3. Select your preference.
   • In the Select linked accounts section, you can select accounts that will show in the cash balance and in the money in and money out chart. If you don’t see an account listed, select the plus + icon to link the bank account. 
   • In the Threshold section, you can keep a cash buffer of a certain amount on hand that will appear on the chart to help you visualise your cash threshold.
4. Select Save.

Forecast your cash flow

The planner gets info from a few places:

• Your connected savings, transaction, and credit card accounts
• Transactions you've entered into QuickBooks with a due date in the future
• Items you add manually to the planner

To get the latest forecast:

1. Go to Dashboards and select Planner (Take me there).
2. Select the month filter shown below Today's cash balance to set the forecast range.
   • When you select 24 months, you can see the money coming in and going out for the past 9 months, the current month, and 14 months into the future.
   • When you select 12 months, you can see the money coming in and going out for the past 9 months, the current month and 2 months into the future.
   • When you select 6 months, you can see the money coming in and going out for the past 3 months, the current month, and 2 months into the future.
   • When you select 3 months, you can see the money coming in and going out for the last month, this month, and next month.
3. Select the Money in/out, and Cash balance tabs to filter the list.
4. Drag the bar across the chart to a specific date. This shows you a list of items that may impact your cash flow.

Items have different labels:

• Predicted: Money in and money out items QuickBooks Online predicts based on your financial history. These are marked with a special icon.
• Invoice, sales receipt, bill, expense, cheque: Transactions you've entered into QuickBooks.
• Planned: Money in and money out items you manually add to the planner, which aren't included in your regular accounting.

Fine-tune forecasts

You can edit the expected amount and date of future items to see how specific changes may impact your cash flow. To adjust an item, select it from the list, make your change, then select Update.

QuickBooks Online doesn't include overdue invoices and bills in forecasts since they're incomplete. If you want to include them:

1. Go to the top of the Cash flow planner list.
2. Select Update to open a list of your overdue bills and invoices.
3. Select a new expected date and select Update for each transaction you want to add.
4. When you're ready, select Done.