Business owners rarely get into cash trouble because they don’t understand it. They get into trouble because reviewing feels like a chore, the future feels far away, and a busy quarter always has something more urgent. The annual accounts arrive months after the numbers turned, when the cheap options have already gone.
An annual figure typed onto a page is also hard to make realistic. A forecast built up from what each quarter actually shows is not. That is why BusinessSolvency anchors the habit to the quarter: it is often enough to catch a trend early, and it lines up with the BAS you already lodge, so the figures are already there.
Peace of mind, not fear
The goal is simple: to know, every quarter, that you can pay yourself, your staff and the ATO, and that the business is on track to fund the life you’re working for.
1. Prepare the BAS as usual. Your accountant, or the bookkeeper they supervise, closes the quarter in the accounting software.
2. Export the quarter and import it. Usually the accountant, or the person they supervise, does this step, once they have data entry authority (Chapter 5, Section 5.4). From the accounting software, export the quarter’s BAS summary or profit and loss report as Excel or CSV. In BusinessSolvency, choose Import Quarterly Data, pick the financial year and quarter, and upload the file. It reads the cash balance, total income, money owed to and by you, short-term loans and GST owed. (Chapter 7A explains exactly what it looks for.)
3. Open Quarterly Forecast & Review. The button sits first in the Reports row on your business page. The quarter just imported now shows Actual and Diff beside its Forecast.
4. Read the four trend cards. Revenue against plan, closing cash against plan, money owed to you, and whether cash in covered cash out. Each one shows the direction and the size, in dollars and percent.
5. Choose one action. If a card is red or amber, decide one thing to do this quarter: chase a slow payer, adjust a price, defer a purchase, reset drawings. One action, so it gets done.
6. Adjust the quarters ahead, and save. If the quarter has shown that the plan was too hopeful, change the forecast for the remaining quarters and click Save. The annual picture is then built on what is really happening.
7. Keep a record. Click Save as web page or Print / PDF. A copy of each quarter’s review for your files and your accountant takes ten seconds.
One quarter that falls short is information. Two quarters falling short in the same direction is a trend, and a trend is the earliest reliable warning there is. Revenue slipping 3%, then 5%; money owed to you rising each quarter; closing cash a little further behind plan each time: none of these looks like a crisis on its own. Together, quarter by quarter, they show exactly where cash is heading, months before it arrives.
That is the point of the review. Not to explain the past, but to see the direction early enough that the fix is small: a price change, a collections call, a smaller purchase, a lower drawing. The longer a negative trend runs, the bigger, and more expensive, the fix becomes.
| Check | What it tells you | If it shows ✗ |
|---|---|---|
| Cash IN ≥ Cash OUT | The Sustainable Cashflow test for the quarter: did everything coming in cover everything going out, including tax, loan repayments and drawings? | Find the cause in the Diff column before the next quarter. One quarter can be timing; two in a row is a trend. |
| Revenue against plan | Whether sales are tracking the forecast, in dollars and percent. | Ask whether it is timing, pricing or volume, and adjust the quarters ahead. |
| Money owed to you | Whether customers are paying on time. Rising debtors is cash earned but not yet received. | Follow up overdue invoices, and consider shorter terms or deposits. |
| Your goal | Whether the quarter can sustainably pay you a quarter of your yearly goal (Chapter 7A). | Close the gap through pricing, costs or collections, or reset the goal to what the business can carry. |
Tie it to the BAS. Quarterly BAS for self-lodgers is generally due on 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July (agents often have later dates). Do the review when the BAS is prepared, while the figures are fresh.
Put four dates in the calendar for the year, repeating, with a link to BusinessSolvency.
Do it with your accountant. They prepare the BAS anyway. Twenty minutes together each quarter makes the review quicker, and gives you someone to keep the habit going with.
Keep tax and super separate. A separate account for the ATO’s share, and for super, stops it being spent as working capital, and makes the quarterly picture easier to trust.
The quarterly review is the habit. But since Payday Super began on 1 July 2026, super must reach employees’ funds within seven business days of every payday, and the ATO sees every pay run. Cash can turn inside a quarter. Between reviews, the one thing to watch is simple: that super and PAYG withholding are paid on time, every pay cycle. If they ever can’t be, don’t wait for the next review: talk to your accountant that week.
The freedom of knowing
An owner who reviews every quarter knows, not hopes, that the bills will be paid. You see every trend early, pay yourself with confidence, and see what the business can sustainably pay you before you commit to it.
New to BusinessSolvency? Practise the review on your own training copy first: Chapter 3B, Section 3B.8.
Chapter 7A shows the Quarterly Forecast & Review page in detail. The worked example in Chapter 8C shows the other path: a profitable business whose owner did not look until the choices had gone.