How to Create a Liquidity Plan: A Template with Columns, Rows and Formulas

You've got projects, the invoices are going out – and yet it's still unclear whether the next tax prepayment and the rent can both leave your account at the same time. That feeling is exactly what a liquidity plan is for. It answers one single question: how much money will be in the account, and when?

The good news: to get started, a table with a handful of rows, a few columns and three formulas is enough. In this article, you'll build that template step by step – so you can rebuild it directly in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers.

What a liquidity plan is – and what it isn't

A liquidity plan shows how your bank balance will develop over the coming months. It doesn't work with profit, only with money that actually moves: incoming payments and outgoing payments.

That's an important difference from calculating profit. An invoice you write in March is March revenue – but often it isn't money in the account until April or May. The liquidity plan only cares about the second date. The article Profit on paper, but no cash? explains in more detail why that matters so much.

Why building your own template beats downloading one

Ready-made templates from the internet often have 40 rows, 30 of which you don't need. If you build the plan yourself, you understand every row – and that's why you'll still be keeping it up to date three months later. That's exactly the point here: the smallest version that actually works.

The structure: columns and rows

The columns: one month per column

The first column holds the labels. After that comes one column per month. Six months are enough to get started, twelve are better – then you'll also see seasonal dips, such as a quiet August or a January in which many clients haven't released their budgets yet.

Important: in each month's column, enter what happens in your account that month. Not when you deliver the work, but when the money comes in or goes out.

The rows: three blocks and two totals rows

A simple liquidity plan consists of five sections:

1. Opening balance – the bank balance on the 1st of the month
2. Cash inflows – all incoming payments, split by source
3. Cash outflows – all outgoing payments, split by type
4. Net cash flow – inflows minus outflows
5. Closing balance – opening balance plus net cash flow

For inflows, three rows are usually enough for solo freelancers: client payments from existing projects, expected payments from proposals that are still open, and other income such as a VAT refund or money you put in from private funds.

For outflows, a bit more detail is worthwhile, because that's where the surprises hide:

• Fixed costs (rent, insurance, software, phone)
• Variable costs (freelancers, materials, travel expenses)
• Owner's salary or private withdrawals
• Taxes and prepayments (VAT, income tax)
• Reserves that you actively transfer to a separate account
• Loan repayments, leasing, investments

Be sure to give tax payments their own separate row. They arrive irregularly, they're large and they're the easiest to forget.

The formulas: three are enough

Let's say the months are in columns B to M, the opening balance is in row 2, cash inflows are in rows 4 to 6 and cash outflows are in rows 9 to 14. Then all you need are these formulas:

Total inflows and total outflows

=SUM(B4:B6)        → Total inflows (row 7)
=SUM(B9:B14)       → Total outflows (row 15)

Net cash flow and closing balance

=B7-B15            → Net cash flow for the month (row 16)
=B2+B16            → Closing balance (row 17)

The opening balance for the following month

This is what actually links the plan together: the opening balance in March is the closing balance in February.

=B17               → in cell C2 (opening balance March)

Drag this formula across to the right through all the months. From now on, all you need to do is enter the real bank balance in the first column – every following month calculates itself automatically.

A traffic light as a bonus

If you want to see at a glance where things get tight, color the closing balance row using conditional formatting: red below €0, yellow below your personal minimum reserve (for example €5,000), green above that. It's no substitute for analysis, but it makes every gap visible at first sight.

Worked example: four months for a consultant

The following example is entirely made up. The numbers are only meant to show how the template fits together.

Lena is a self-employed marketing consultant. She starts January with €8,000 in her business account, has a regular client paying €4,500 per month and a second project for which she issues an invoice of €6,000 in February – experience says it won't be paid until around 30 days later. In March, she plans for a VAT prepayment; in April, for an income tax prepayment. Both amounts are pure assumptions for the sake of the example.

What the plan shows: in February, the balance drops to €4,300, even though Lena "made" €6,000 in revenue that month. The money doesn't arrive until March. If a €2,500 laptop had also been due in February, things could have gotten tight – not because the business is doing badly, but because the timing is unfavorable.

That's exactly what the template is for: it makes timing visible, not just amounts. Lena could push the laptop to March, skip the transfer to reserves in February, or agree on an interim payment with the project client.

How to keep the plan up to date

Reconcile once a month

At the start of the month, enter the real bank balance and overwrite the planned figure. That corrects the whole plan to the right. If the real figure is regularly well below the planned one, your assumed payment terms are usually too optimistic – in that case, work with 45 days instead of 30.

Flag uncertain inflows

Open proposals tend to land in the plan too early and in full. A simple rule: only what has been commissioned goes in the "Client payment" row. Everything else goes in a separate row called "Expected, not certain" – and you mentally subtract that when you look at the closing balance.

When the template gets too small

At some point, many people want more: several scenarios side by side, reserves with target and actual values, a statement of how long the money will last if payments stop coming in. You can build all of that yourself with additional worksheets. If you'd rather save yourself the effort, the THA·ONE liquidity tool gives you a ready-made Excel cockpit with a 12-month forecast, scenarios and a traffic light. For a first impression of whether things are tight at all, the free liquidity quick check is enough.

A note on the tax rows: which amounts and deadlines actually apply to you depends on your situation. THA·ONE is a planning aid, not tax advice within the meaning of the German Tax Advisory Act (StBerG) – the specific figures are best clarified with your tax advisor.

Conclusion

A liquidity plan doesn't have to be complicated. One column per month, three blocks of rows, three formulas – and the link from the closing balance to the next opening balance. That's the whole template.

The value lies less in the calculating than in the looking: you spot months in which money will get tight long before they arrive. And you can respond while there's still room to maneuver. If you're building the plan for the first time, the guide Liquidity planning for freelancers in 5 steps will help you get started.