Managing Cash Flow in Mastt

Use cash flow to plan when your project's money will be spent, then close each month so actual amounts replace the forecast. You can forecast in detail for each contract, variation, forecast or risk, or at a higher level by budget.

Before you start

Your project needs existing contracts and forecasts in the Cost Module, and a basic understanding of cash flow concepts.

Find your way around

Open the Cash Flow tab in the Cost Module. The table lists your budgets, contracts, variations, forecasts and risks, with a column for each month.

Column	What it shows
Forecast Final Cost	The total forecast for the row
Unassigned	The amount that hasn't been placed in a month yet. It shows in red until you've assigned the full amount.
Month columns	Cash flow for each month. A lock icon and green shading mark months you've closed.

The current month is highlighted. An open month that has payments recorded against it shows an orange dot and an orange heading. Target and Baseline rows at the top of the table hold the comparison figures that can be shown on the chart.

Control	What it does
Range	Chooses the months you see (see Choose your date range)
Cumulative	Shows running totals in both the chart and the table. When it's on, choose whether the totals build from the Start of Project or the Start of Range.
Show Chart / Hide Chart	Shows or hides the cash flow chart above the table
Create Report	Creates a dashboard from your cash flow data
Export	Exports the table
Expand All, Columns, Filter and Reset	Control which rows and columns you see
Settings cog	Opens Cash Flow Settings

Read the cash flow chart

Click Show Chart to see your cash flow as a chart.

Colour	What it shows
Green	Paid amounts
Blue	Contract amounts
Dark blue	Uncommitted amounts
Yellow	Risk
Purple	Client contingency
Pink	Project contingency

Chart settings

Click the settings cog to open Cash Flow Settings:

Show Chart and Show Table – turn the chart and the table on or off.
Budget Cash Flow Entry – turn on to forecast at budget level (see below).
Target, Baseline, Budget Projection, Released and Unreleased – choose None, Line or Bar for each, to compare against your planned spending.
Show Cumulative Overlay – adds a cumulative line that shares the same axis as the other data.

Choose how to forecast

Approach	Best for
Object level	Detailed forecasting for each contract, variation, forecast or risk
Budget level	Many items under a budget, or when you don't need line-item precision. You allocate across all the contracts under the budget in one form.

Forecast at object level

Click the three dots next to a contract, variation, forecast or risk and choose the option to edit its cash flow.
Mastt shows the total amount and the Unassigned amount that's left.
Enter amounts month by month. Use the arrows at the top to move between years.
Add a note to explain the change (see Add notes below).
When the unassigned amount reaches zero, you'll see a confetti celebration. Click Confirm.

You can paste a whole row of cells from Excel: select the data in Excel, click the first month field in Mastt and paste.

Forecast at budget level

Click the settings cog and turn on Budget Cash Flow Entry, then close settings.
Click the three dots next to a budget and choose the option to edit its cash flow. Budget-level and object-level cash flow are mutually exclusive for a budget, so clear any existing object-level cash flow for its items before you enter budget-level amounts.
The form lists the budget's categories: Client Contingency, Contract, Project Contingency, Risk and Uncommitted. For each one, enter amounts by month.
Zero out the Unassigned amount, add a note and click Confirm.

Add notes

When you edit cash flow, the form has a note box: Add a note to justify this change. Notes you've added before are listed beside it, so you can see why earlier changes were made.

Close and reopen months

When a month is complete, close it so actual amounts replace the forecast.

Hover over the month's heading.
Click Close off.
The month locks and shows actual amounts, and the green bars in the chart show actual spend.

Hover over an open month to see how it works: an open month shows the assigned cash flow, and once all the payments for that month have been recorded, you can close it to show the actual cash flow.

What closing a month does. A closed month shows only payments with a Paid status. After you close it:

you can't change that month's cash flow
you can't add new payments to it
payments can't be moved out of it

Only administrators can make changes to closed months. To reopen a month, hover over it and click Re-open. Reopening returns the month to forecast amounts.

Choose your date range

Click Range, switch between Monthly and Yearly, then set the From Month and To Month, or use a preset:

Today – six months, including the current month
Calendar Year
Prev FY, Current FY and Next FY – the previous, current and next financial year
All Data – the full project timeline

Report on cash flow

Your cash flow data feeds dashboard tiles, including the Cash Flow Variance tile, which can show projection lines for a forward-looking view. See Building Powerful Dashboards in Mastt.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to try
Cash flow doesn't match the contract amount	Make sure you've allocated the full amount across months. The Unassigned column should be zero.
I can't reopen a month, or change a closed month	Only administrators can reopen closed months.
Green actuals aren't showing	Close the month. Actuals only appear for closed months.
I can't forecast at budget level	Turn on Budget Cash Flow Entry in Cash Flow Settings.
I can't see the chart	Click Show Chart, or turn on Show Chart in Cash Flow Settings.

Need help?

Contact Mastt Support for additional assistance.