A weekly cash meeting for a consultancy
Why a consultancy should hold a short weekly cash meeting, who should be in the room, the standing agenda, and how to check last week's forecast.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Consulting businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
In a consultancy, cash can easily become everybody's concern and nobody's job. The finance officer knows the bank balance. The engagement partners know which clients are about to be invoiced and which are disputing fees. The managing partner knows that a new hire starts next month. Each holds a piece of the picture, and the full picture only comes together when payroll is a week away and the balance looks thin.
A short weekly cash meeting fixes that by bringing the pieces into one room at a set time. It need not be long. It needs the right people, a fixed agenda and a habit of writing down who will do what.
Who owns cash when money is tight
ICAEW's guidance for finance professionals advises that the chief executive should take overall responsibility for cash management if there is a risk of business failure. In a consultancy, the equivalent is usually the managing partner or managing director.
That matters because the decisions that move cash in a consultancy are rarely finance decisions alone. Delaying a hire, asking a client for an advance, pausing a partner distribution, or agreeing a payment plan with a supplier all need someone with the authority to decide. If cash is tight and the meeting has no one who can make those calls, it becomes a reporting session rather than a management one.
When cash is comfortable, the finance lead can chair it. When it is not, the managing partner should be in the chair.
Who sits in the meeting and why
ICAEW recommends regular cash meetings involving those with insight into predicted cash movements, held at least weekly, with action points and responsibilities documented. Its paper on nine principles of cash management for finance professionals sets out those principles, from ownership and regular meetings through forecasting detail, scenarios and controls over cash reporting.
For a consultancy, "insight into predicted cash movements" points to a small group:
- the finance lead, who brings the bank position and the forecast;
- the engagement partners or managers for the largest clients, who know when work will be invoiced and whether a client is unhappy;
- whoever runs payroll, because salaries are a large outflow that cannot slip;
- the managing partner, who can decide.
Keep it to people who bring information or make decisions. Thirty minutes, same day, same time.
The standing agenda
Use the same order every week so that gaps are obvious:
- Bank. Balance in each account, and whether all statements are imported up to yesterday.
- Receipts expected this week and next, client by client, with the person responsible for each.
- Debtors. Anything newly overdue, and progress on last week's collection actions.
- Payroll. The next run's total and date, and any changes such as new starters, leavers or bonuses.
- Suppliers and other payments. Rent, subcontractors, tax payments and anything unusual.
- The forecast. The week-by-week position for the next few months, and the earliest week it looks tight.
- Actions. Who will do what, by when.
The data behind the receipts line
ICAEW advises keeping detailed data behind cash forecasts, particularly for debtors: expected, worst-case and best-case dates; maximum, expected and minimum amounts; collection probabilities; and a named person responsible for each item. For a consultancy, that turns "Client A should pay soon" into a line that says when it is expected, what could go wrong, how likely the payment is and who is chasing it.
Where the figures come from in Achekam
The meeting is only as good as the figures brought to it. In Achekam:
- Bank. A business imports bank statements as PDF, CSV, Excel, OFX, QIF, MT940 or CAMT.053, and each import is checked so that the opening balance plus movements equals the closing balance. Where the workspace has an AI model configured, it can read scanned or unrecognised PDFs, and every amount must appear on the page. Import up to the day before the meeting, so the balance discussed is real.
- Debtors. Receivables are aged into 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120 and over 120 days, with overdue totals. Bring the age analysis and go through anything that moved into a later column since last week.
- Payroll. Each approved pay run has a payment schedule downloadable as CSV. Marking it paid only records the fact: Achekam moves no money, so the payment itself still has to be released from the bank. Bring the schedule's total to the meeting and confirm the release date.
The forecast itself is usually a spreadsheet kept by the finance lead; a rolling 13-week cash forecast shows one way to lay it out.
Named actions, and last week's forecast against what happened
Every meeting should end with a short list: action, owner, date. "Call the client's finance manager about the disputed invoice — engagement partner — Wednesday." Read last week's list at the start of the next meeting, before anything else.
ICAEW also advises producing worst-case, most-likely and best-case cash flow scenarios, including a prediction of the earliest date additional funding may be required, and checking forecasts against actuals to improve the process. Two habits put that into practice:
- Compare last week's forecast with what actually happened. Which receipts arrived late, which payments were missed from the forecast? The pattern of misses tells you where the forecast is weak.
- Name the earliest date funding may be needed in the worst case, every week. If that date moves closer, the managing partner has a decision to make, not a number to note.
A consultancy can be profitable and still run short; profit but no cash explains why. The weekly meeting is where that gap is managed before it becomes a crisis, and the monthly management accounts for partners show whether the underlying business is healthy.
Pick a day and time, send the invitation to the four roles above, and bring this agenda to the first meeting next week.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
