A forecast you build once and run all year
It's October at Coastline, and next year's plan is due. This is how 2027 goes with a forecast running underneath it: built in one sitting, a cash crunch spotted five months out, and a slow March traced down to Friday nights.
Sample data · Coastline is a demo breweryHow it works in 90 seconds. The page below is the whole year, with every number.
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Budget season
Coastline brought in about $13.4M over the last twelve months, seven dollars of every ten through its three distributors and the rest across three taprooms. Every October, the owner builds next year's plan.
It goes the same way each year. The bookkeeper exports the year so far, Sam pulls sales by distributor, the taprooms send their numbers, and a spreadsheet grows tabs for several weeks. By spring the plan doesn't match the business anymore, so the year runs on instinct, the way the last one did.
Everyone worked hard. The plan couldn't keep up with the year.
Three ideas become a year
This year it starts with one connection: read-only access to Coastline's QuickBooks, three years of P&L and balance sheet, checked so the numbers tie out to the books before anything is built on them.
Then the owner tells the story: where the business is today, where it should be by the end of 2027, and what will close the gap. Three ideas do most of the work, and each one gets sized. Turn them on and off to see what each adds.
Coastline's 2027, by month
The last twelve months, carried into 2027, with each of the owner's ideas on top.
Coastline sample data · revenue by month, 2027 · the gray base is the last twelve months' shape
Together that's $15.0M for 2027. Every line carries the idea behind it, so when one turns out wrong, everyone can see which one.
A spring cash problem, seen in October
The same session builds cash a year out, week by week, against a floor the owner sets: about three weeks of costs, $784K.
None of it has happened yet. As first built, cash slips under the floor the week of February 22. Getting ready for the new distributors means buying ingredients and packaging in February, months before their first orders pay anything back. Then the week of March 15, the patio's final bill and two new fermenters land together, and cash drops to $435K, about 12 days of costs. It stays there into May.
The same year of cash, before and after two changes
Cash on hand at the end of each week, October 2026 to September 2027, against the owner's floor.
Coastline sample data · weekly cash on hand · floor = 21 days of costs at the year's pace
So the plan changes before anyone commits to it. The patio and the fermenters go on a five-year loan, about $9,100 a month from April, and the ingredients and packaging get bought in the weeks before brewing starts. Same patio, same distributors, same revenue. The lowest week of the year is now $891K, clear of the floor.
The budget stays put. The forecast keeps moving.
With cash sorted, the owner locks it, and the year's goals come from it. The budget, $1.55M of profit before depreciation, stays put. The forecast keeps moving: each week it takes in what happened and carries the recent pace to the end of the quarter.
What Coastline committed to, and what it expected each week after
Full-year 2027 profit: the locked budget, and the forecast as it stood each Monday through March.
Coastline sample data · full-year profit before depreciation · the scale starts above zero so a gap of a few percent shows
Through most of January the two stay within a few thousand dollars. By the first of March, the year is heading for $60K under what was committed, months before any year-end close would have said so.
Most Mondays, nothing needs you
Cash refreshes every morning. The rest lands on Monday and leads with whatever needs the owner. Most weeks that list is empty. This is one of the weeks it isn't.
- At this pace the quarter closes about $60K under plan, and the taproom is the biggest piece of it.
- Getting paid has slowed from 32 days to 35, which is $74K of cash still out with distributors.
The second one goes to the bookkeeper, who knows which distributor to call. The first one is worth following down.
What inning it is
Behind the Monday card sits the quarter board. A brewery finance coach calls it knowing what inning you're in: thirteen weeks in the quarter, eight played, each one scored against its own plan.
Cash is $67K behind plan for the first eight weeks. Slower collections are the biggest piece. Profit is one line, and it opens into its own board.
Cash, first eight weeks, against the locked plan
Planned $971K by February 28; actual $905K.
Coastline sample data · the six lines add to the gap
Profit, week by week, against each week's plan
$64K banked of $91K planned to date, toward a quarter of $182K.
To get all the way back, each of the last five weeks would need $24K, against $18K planned and a best week so far of $13K. That's a different plan, not a harder push. Open any area; they add back up to the $27K.
The books say the taproom is $14K behind. They can't say why.
Everything so far comes from QuickBooks alone. It reaches every dollar, and it stops at the edge of what the books count.
What the books reach
- Every dollar in and out, to the week
- Who owes you, and for how long
- Who you owe, and when it's due
- What went into inventory, and from which suppliers
- The picture by area, where the books carry it
Where they stop
- Why an area is behind: covers, checks, hours
- Which beer the inventory dollars are sitting in
- What the distributors actually sold through
- Anything the books never counted
It can tell you $1.59M went into inventory this quarter. It can't tell you which beer.
One level further
Connect Coastline's point-of-sale and its labor scheduling, and the taproom opens one more level. It's a second connection and very doable, but none of this comes from QuickBooks alone.
Since week 4: fewer people in on Friday nights, and the same hours on the floor.
Did it work?
On Tuesday, March 2, the owner and the hospitality director move two Friday shifts to Saturday and record it, with the baseline saved alongside: the taproom was running about $2.8K a week under plan. Three weeks later, the same point-of-sale and labor data answers three questions.
Did the number change?
YesThe taproom went from about $2.8K a week under plan to about $1.2K.
For the reason you thought?
MostlyFriday's labor came back to plan, and Saturday picked up about $1.1K a week in covers. Friday covers themselves didn't come back.
Did anything else get worse?
Worth a lookSaturday labor ran four points over plan, about $0.8K a week.
Why Friday covers are down is a question for the hospitality director more than for the forecast. The next decision starts from a recorded baseline, and one new thing to watch: Saturday labor next to Saturday covers.
Coastline's year, in seven learnings
It starts with one connection and one conversation, and only the second one takes any of the owner's time.
One connection
Read-only access to QuickBooks Online, set up once. It's where the history comes from, and what keeps the rest current.
About an hour of our time and none of yoursOne conversation
Where you think the business is going, what you're doing differently, and what worries you.
The part only you can doNot ready to connect yet? One export of three years of P&L and balance sheet is enough to build the forecast. And because it rolls twelve months rather than resetting in January, the first one can start with the quarter you're already in, at lower stakes than next year's plan.