Plainhub
Comparison

Cash forecasting software, compared

Cash forecasting software projects your future cash position from what you earn and spend, so you see a shortfall months before it arrives. Almost every tool in the category builds that forecast out of your accounting system, which is a strength when you have one and a wall when you do not. Here is what each tool is genuinely good at, including ours, and how to tell which situation you are in.

The question that decides it

Before comparing features, answer one thing: is your bookkeeping current?

If it is, connect a tool to it. Float, Fathom, Agicap and Cash Flow Frog will read the ledger and project forward with very little work from you, and their forecasts will be more granular than anything you would build by hand.

If it is not, and for most pre-seed and seed companies it is not, those tools cannot start. A forecast derived from an empty ledger is empty. You either fix the bookkeeping first, which takes weeks, or you use something that takes direct input.

What to look for

Once you know which side of the bookkeeping question you are on, four things separate the tools that get used from the ones that get abandoned:

  • Where the numbers come from. Ledger sync, bank feed, or direct input. This decides your setup time, your ongoing maintenance, and what breaks when a connection does. It matters more than any feature.
  • Horizon and grain. A weekly 13-week view catches timing collisions like payroll leaving before an invoice lands; a monthly 12-month view answers runway. You will eventually want both, and some tools only do one.
  • Scenarios without surgery. The forecast earns its keep when you can ask what a hire, a price change or a lost customer does to the trajectory, without rebuilding the model to find out.
  • Who keeps it true. Every forecast decays. Accounting-connected tools decay when the bookkeeping lags; manual ones decay when you stop recording. Pick the failure mode you will actually notice, because a forecast nobody maintains is worse than none — it is a wrong number with confidence.

Eight options

1. Plainhub

Connects to: Nothing. You type the events yourself
Best for: Founders with no finance team who want runway now

Records money in plain words and keeps runway, burn and MRR live. No accounting system required, which is the point: there is nothing to connect and nothing to reconcile. Weaker if you want an invoice-level, three-way forecast.

2. Float

Connects to: Xero, QuickBooks
Best for: Xero and QuickBooks users wanting a visual forecast

Pulls your ledger and projects forward from it. Strong scenario views. You need a maintained accounting system first, so it suits a company already doing proper bookkeeping.

3. Fathom

Connects to: Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB, Excel
Best for: Three-way forecasting and reporting

Cash, profit and balance sheet forecast together, with polished reporting. More tool than most pre-seed companies need, and priced accordingly.

4. Agicap

Connects to: Banks, ERPs
Best for: European SMEs with multiple bank accounts

Bank-connected liquidity monitoring across entities. Good if cash is spread over several accounts and currencies, heavy if it is one account.

5. Cash Flow Frog

Connects to: QuickBooks, Sage Intacct and others
Best for: Small businesses on QuickBooks

Builds the forecast automatically from your accounting data. Simple and quick to start, tied to having the ledger in place.

6. LivePlan

Connects to: QuickBooks, Xero
Best for: Business planning alongside the forecast

Forecast sits inside a business-plan product, so it fits fundraising documents and lender packets more than day-to-day operating.

7. Jirav

Connects to: Accounting, payroll
Best for: Companies hiring a first finance lead

Driver-based planning with headcount modelling. Real FP&A capability, and it expects someone whose job is finance.

8. A spreadsheet

Connects to: Whatever you paste into it
Best for: Total control, zero cost

Honest the day you build it and quietly wrong after that. Still the right answer for a genuinely unusual model, and the wrong one for a number you need to trust weekly.

Where Plainhub fits, and where it does not

Plainhub is built for the second case above. You record money as it happens, in plain words, and runway, burn and MRR stay current. There is no accounting system to connect, no bank login, and no reconciliation step, so a founder with no finance function gets a trustworthy runway number on day one rather than after a bookkeeping project.

It is the wrong choice if you want an invoice-level three-way forecast, multi-entity consolidation, or anything an FP&A team would call a model. Fathom and Jirav do that properly and Plainhub does not try to — the full boundary is drawn in when you need a Fathom alternative and when you don't. It answers one question well: how long you have, and what each decision changes.

If you want to sanity-check a number before choosing anything, the cash flow forecast tool and cash runway calculator are free and need no signup.

What founders actually use a forecast for

A cash forecast sounds like an accounting artifact. In practice it is a decision tool, and founders reach for it at four specific moments. Timing a raise: a fundraise takes roughly six months, so the forecast’s zero-crossing date minus six months is the date you have to start — how much runway to raise works through the arithmetic. Pricing a hire: not in salary but in months of runway, which is the unit the decision is actually made in. Spotting a cliff month: a quarter that looks fine in total can hide one week where payroll leaves before the big invoice arrives. And sizing cuts: when the trajectory is wrong, the forecast shows which lines move it and which are noise.

None of these need invoice-level precision. They need a number that is current and honest, which is why the maintenance question above matters more than the feature list.

Common questions

What is cash flow forecasting software?

A tool that projects your future cash position from what you earn and spend, so you can see shortfalls before they arrive. Most build the forecast from an accounting system; some, like Plainhub, build it from events you record yourself.

How does cash flow forecasting software work?

It takes your recurring inflows and outflows plus any one-offs, rolls the bank balance forward month by month or week by week, and flags the point where the balance crosses zero. The differences between tools are where the inputs come from — an accounting ledger, a bank feed, or numbers you enter directly — and whether you can model a change, like a hire or a price rise, and see the new trajectory next to the old one.

What is the best cash flow forecasting software?

There is no single best, because the tools serve different situations. With maintained books, Float or Fathom will give you the most forecast for the least work. With cash spread across several banks and entities, Agicap. Without an accounting system or a finance person, Plainhub, because it takes direct input. For a one-off model with unusual mechanics, a spreadsheet is still legitimate.

What is the best cash flow forecasting tool for a startup?

It depends on whether you already keep proper books. If you do, an accounting-connected tool like Float or Fathom will give you a detailed forecast with little manual work. If you do not, those tools cannot help until you fix the bookkeeping first, and a self-recorded model gets you a usable runway number the same day.

Do I need accounting software to forecast cash flow?

For most tools, yes, because they derive the forecast from your ledger. That is a real dependency, not a detail: an empty or stale ledger produces an empty or stale forecast. Tools that take direct input work without one.

How far ahead should a cash flow forecast go?

Thirteen weeks is the standard operating horizon because it is close enough to be accurate and long enough to act on. Founders usually also want a twelve-month view for runway, which is a different question answered by the same model.

Is a spreadsheet good enough?

For a single scenario you rebuild occasionally, yes. The failure is not the maths, it is maintenance: formulas break silently, the file drifts from reality, and you end up quoting a number you have not checked in a month. If you only look at it before board meetings, that is exactly when it will be wrong.

Is there free cash flow forecasting software?

There is no meaningful free tier on the dedicated platforms, but free options exist below them: spreadsheet templates, which cost time instead of money, and single-purpose calculators. Plainhub's cash flow forecast tool and cash runway calculator are free with no signup, and most of the paid tools on this page offer trials. What you cannot get free is the ongoing part — a forecast that stays current without someone maintaining it.

How much does cash forecasting software cost?

Accounting-connected tools generally run from tens to low hundreds per month depending on entities and users. FP&A platforms aimed at finance teams cost considerably more. Plainhub is €29.99 or €59.99 a month, and the demo is free with no signup.

No bookkeeping required

Type what you spend, see what is left. Plainhub keeps runway, burn and MRR live from plain-language entries, in 155 currencies, with a first model running in about a minute.

Build your modelTry the free forecast tool