The spreadsheet I built to track my invoice due dates actually made my cash flow worse

I spent 3 hours color-coding everything but forgot to account for the 15-day payment lag from one regular contractor, and now I'm scrambling to cover my rent because that $1,200 check still hasn't cleared.

3 comments

3 Comments

park.aaron6d ago

forgot to account for the 15-day payment lag" - yeah that's rough but honestly I think you might be looking at this wrong. That spreadsheet is probably still useful, just not for tracking when money actually hits your account. The real problem is you're mixing up invoice dates with cash dates, they're totally different things. Maybe use the spreadsheet to track when you can actually spend money, like color code the date you physically see the money in your bank, not when you send the invoice. That way you're working with real cash flow, not just your billing schedule.

nancyramirez6d ago

Good point. Cash flow and billing are two different beasts entirely.

michael8036d ago

Doesn't it feel like half the systems we set up just end up highlighting a different problem we didn't even know we had... like putting a fancy sign on a leaky pipe