How do you build a 13-week cash forecast for a group of companies?

Build one forecast per entity, in its own currency, with every intercompany transfer shown on both sides. Translate each entity at one approved rate. Then add them up and remove intercompany cash, but only when every company is in the view. Before you trust the total, check that what the senders expect to send matches what the receivers expect to receive.

Start with one forecast per entity.

The guides that rank today agree on the problem. Finmo says a second entity turns the forecast into an open system with intercompany flows and a currency mix, and Agicap warns that intercompany cash gets double counted or missed. Neither shows what that does to the numbers, or how to tell when the two sides of a transfer agree. That is what this article adds.

The method is the usual direct one, run once for each company, in weekly buckets, before anything is added together.

Seven steps. Steps 1 to 5 run per entity in its own currency; 6 and 7 build the group view.
Step	What goes in
1. Opening cash	Each entity’s posted cash and bank balance today, in its own currency. Take overdrafts off, so the base is net cash.
2. Known receipts	Open customer invoices at their due dates. Overdue ones land in week 1, so look at the large ones before you rely on them.
3. Known payments	Open supplier bills at their due dates, plus debt service and tax payments you already know.
4. Recurring flows	Payroll, rent and subscriptions from each entity’s own history or schedules. Accruals and depreciation move no cash, so they add nothing.
5. Intercompany	Each transfer appears once in the sender and once in the receiver, labelled intercompany in both.
6. Translate	Convert each entity at one approved rate on or before the forecast date. Never add euros to dollars.
7. Combine	Add the entities, then remove intercompany cash, but only when every company in the group is in the view.

Seven steps. Steps 1 to 5 run per entity in its own currency; 6 and 7 build the group view.

A parent and one subsidiary, 13 weeks.

Take an example group: a US parent and a German GmbH, forecasting from Monday 9 November 2026. The parent funds the GmbH’s payroll with 150,000 dollars a month, three transfers inside the horizon, which arrive as 138,900 euros each. The approved EUR rate is 1.08, dated 30 October.

Totals over the 13 weeks. Example figures. Brackets are outflows.
	US parent (USD)	GmbH (EUR)	GmbH in USD at 1.08
Opening cash	1,840,000	410,000	442,800
Customer receipts	1,960,000	180,000	194,400
Supplier payments	(1,120,000)	(120,000)	(129,600)
Payroll and recurring	(1,350,000)	(390,000)	(421,200)
Intercompany funding	(450,000)	416,700	450,036
Ending cash, week 13	880,000	496,700	536,436

Totals over the 13 weeks. Example figures. Brackets are outflows.

Each entity’s own forecast is right as it stands. The parent needs the 450,000 outflow to see its own cash fall to 880,000, and the GmbH needs the funding to see that it can make payroll. The question is what happens when you add them.

Remove intercompany once, and check both sides first.

Three ways to add the example group together, in USD over 13 weeks.
Approach	Receipts	Payments	Ending cash	Result
Both sides in, intercompany removed	2,154,400	3,020,800	1,416,400	Right. Only cash entering or leaving the group.
Both sides in, nothing removed	2,604,436	3,470,800	1,416,436	Ending is close, but receipts and payments are each about 450,000 too high.
Parent leaves out the funding it sends	2,604,436	3,020,800	1,866,436	Ending is 450,036 too high. Cash the parent has promised still looks spendable.

Three ways to add the example group together, in USD over 13 weeks.

The third row is the common one. The local team forecasts the funding it expects, while head office treats the transfer as internal and leaves it out. The group then shows 450,036 more cash than it will have. Over a quarter with a payroll in every month, that is the gap between a comfortable forecast and a tight one.

The accounting rule points the same way. An IFRS Interpretations Committee staff paper from September 2025 restates IFRS 10 paragraph B86: on consolidation a parent eliminates in full the intragroup assets, liabilities, income, expenses and cash flows of an intragroup loan. It also notes that the exchange difference on that loan is not eliminated. In a forecast, the same thing shows up as a small difference between the two sides.

The two-sided check

Intercompany funding over 13 weeks, in USD

US parent sends      3 x 150,000          450,000
GmbH receives        3 x 138,900 EUR
                     at 1.08              450,036
Difference                                     36

Test: is the difference more than 1% of the
larger side?   36 / 450,036 = 0.008%     No

Group total carries neither side.
The 36 is reported, not hidden.

If the difference were large, look for:
  a transfer sent in week 13 that lands in week 14
  a rate the two teams did not agree on
  an intercompany balance that does not reconcile

Run this check every time you refresh the forecast. A small difference from rates is normal. A large one is worth a call to the other team before the forecast goes to anyone.

How Rivane builds the forecast today.

Rivane builds the forecast when you open it, from the open invoices, bills, recurring templates and posted cash already in the ledger, for one entity or the whole group. Each week states its basis, and the group view shows the net intercompany difference with a note saying whether it was removed from the total.

Rivane cash forecast, as built

# Rivane cash forecast, as built.

horizon        13 weeks by default, 1 to 52 allowed
known flows    open customer invoices and open supplier
               bills at their due dates; overdue items
               in week 1
recurring      active recurring invoices and journals;
               a journal counts only for its effect on a
               cash account, so accruals add nothing
history        monthly patterns and weekly run rates
               learned from each entity's posted cash,
               with flagged one-off entries left out
translation    each entity at the latest approved rate on
               or before the forecast date; a missing
               rate, or one older than 35 days, stops the
               group view and names the entity and pair
intercompany   removed only when the view holds every
               active company; the difference between
               the two sides is reported and flagged
               above 1% of the larger side
ranges         low and high cases follow the spread seen
               in the ledger's own history, not a fixed
               percentage; with no history they equal
               the base case and say so
alerts         any company below zero or below its floor,
               today or within the horizon

The limits worth knowing. Intercompany removal applies to the intercompany cash Rivane learns from posted history; an open intercompany invoice or bill is still projected at its due date like any other document, so check those by hand in the group view. There is no payroll schedule source yet, so payroll comes from each entity’s posted history. The projected movement for an entity is placed in its default bank account, because invoices and bills do not say which account they will settle through.

The short version.

Forecast each entity in its own currency with intercompany shown on both sides. Translate at one approved rate and show its date. Remove intercompany only when every company is in the view, and check the two sides agree before you do. In the example, skipping that check put 450,036 of cash in the forecast that the group would never have.

To see the forecast next to cash position and bank reconciliation, read the Rivane cash flow overview.

Frequently asked questions.

Should intercompany transfers be in a group cash forecast?

Yes in each entity’s own forecast, and no in the group total. Each entity needs its intercompany receipts and payments to see its own cash. When every company is in the group view, remove both sides, because that cash never leaves the group. If any company is missing from the view, keep the flows, since the other side is not there to cancel them.

Which exchange rate should a multi-currency 13-week cash forecast use?

Translate each entity at one approved rate on or before the forecast date, and show the rate and its date beside the entity. A forecast that guesses future rates week by week mixes a currency view into a cash view. If a move in the rate matters, run it as a separate case and keep the base forecast unchanged.

How do you know the two sides of an intercompany transfer agree?

Add up what senders expect to send and what receivers expect to receive over the horizon, both in the group currency. They should be close to equal. A difference above about 1% of the larger side usually means a transfer straddles the last week, the two teams used different rates, or an intercompany balance does not reconcile.

Sources

A note on how this was researched. The IFRS staff paper was downloaded and page 16 read directly. The two guides were read in full as current answers. The group, its entities, the rate and every amount are examples. The Rivane section describes the product as built today, checked against the cash forecast code rather than marketing copy. This is not accounting or treasury advice for your specific case.

On embedded social posts: we looked for public posts from regulators or practitioners on multi-entity cash forecasting and found none we could verify as current and relevant, so this article uses ordinary citations instead.