Accounting Firm Cash Flow Template

Once your baseline data is in, open the WIP & Billing Pipeline sheet and log current unbilled work by staff member and engagement. Separate your CAS clients onto the retainer section — their monthly fees are predictable and should be modeled differently from project-based tax and audit work. Then move to the Seasonal Cash Flow Projection sheet and review the pre-set seasonal multipliers. Adjust them to match your practice's revenue pattern: if your April is three times your August, set that ratio and the projection will scale accordingly for each month.

The metrics that matter most in accounting firm cash flow are utilization rate, realization rate, and collection rate — and most firms track all three inconsistently. Utilization rate measures how much of your staff's total hours are actually billed to clients; healthy CPA firms target 60–70% for professional staff. Realization rate measures the percentage of billable time that converts to an invoice — write-offs before billing are invisible revenue losses that no collection process can recover. Collection rate is what you actually collect from what you invoice. If any of these three metrics is slipping, you'll see the effect in cash first, and this template helps you identify which one is the problem before you've lost the revenue.