What this page is for
Cash Requirements projects the cash you’ll owe your suppliers over future periods, so you can see spending peaks before they arrive. It lays spend out over time — monthly or weekly — and breaks it down by supplier, so finance and planning share one forward view of purchasing cash. Use it to answer questions like “how much will we owe in October?” and “which suppliers drive that peak?” — and to separate the spend you’re already committed to from the spend that’s still a plan.Confirmed vs Planned
The key idea is that each period splits into two kinds of spend:| Bucket | What it is |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | Spend from purchase orders (POs) already placed in your ERP — money you’re committed to. (An ERP is your company’s system of record.) |
| Planned | Spend from POs not yet committed — those in Draft, Pending Approval, or Recommended status. Real cash only if you place them. |
How payment timing is worked out
Spend lands in a period based on when payment is due, not when the order was placed. For each shipment:Payment due date = shipment ETA + payment termsETA is the Estimated Time of Arrival. The payment terms are taken in order of preference: from the PO if it has them, otherwise from the supplier, otherwise a 30-day default. So a shipment arriving in early October on 30-day terms shows up as cash due in early November.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Only confirmed orders | Hides Planned spend so you see just your committed cash. |
| Hide payment terms | Removes the payment-terms detail for a cleaner view. |
| Yearly totals | Rolls the periods up into full-year figures. |
| Export | Downloads the projection to share or reconcile offline. |
Drilling in
Any supplier-and-period cell is drillable: open it to see the POs and line items behind the number. That’s how you check a surprising figure — you can trace a big month straight back to the specific orders and products driving it.Step by step: plan next quarter’s cash
- Set the view to monthly and look across the next few periods.
- Read each month as Confirmed (already owed) plus Planned (owed only if you place those POs).
- Turn on Only confirmed orders to see your hard commitments alone, then turn it off to see the full plan.
- Find the peak month and drill into the biggest suppliers to see which POs and line items drive it.
- Export the projection to hand to finance.
Example
A planner opens Cash Requirements and sees October running high. Toggling Only confirmed orders cuts the month nearly in half — most of the spike is Planned, from Recommended POs not yet placed. Drilling into the top supplier shows two large orders arriving late September; on 30-day terms, their payment falls due in October. The planner now knows the peak is discretionary and can defer if cash is tight.Tip: When a month looks alarming, check the Confirmed vs Planned split first — a peak made of Planned spend is still yours to change. See Purchase orders for the order statuses behind the buckets, and Supplier spend for the historical counterpart to this forward view.