Bank balance & cash position
Where to read your forecast bank balance in bluprnts, what the closing balance means, and how the Dashboard charts profit and cash side by side.
Your bank balance is the running cash position: what is actually in the account at the end of each month, after everything that came in and everything that went out. It is the one figure the balance sheet and the cash flow statement must agree on, and the figure that decides whether a plan is survivable.
Opening, incoming, outgoing, closing#
The balance is built from four series:
| Series | What it is |
|---|---|
| Opening balance | Cash at the start of the month — last month's closing |
| Incoming | Everything that arrived |
| Outgoing | Everything that left |
| Closing balance | Opening, plus incoming, less outgoing |
The closing balance is what people mean by "the bank balance". Where it goes negative, the plan needs funding it doesn't currently have.
Your starting point comes from the opening position — the cash you begin with, plus anything already owed to and by you.
Where to read it#
| Where | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Overview → cash horizon | The closing balance charted across the whole forecast, with milestones |
| Dashboard → Cashflow card | Monthly in and out, with the balance running over the top |
| Runway → net cashflow ribbon | Monthly movement, the balance line, and the month it runs out |
| Financials → Cashflow | The balance band under the movements, as a table |
| Financials → Balance Sheet | The closing position as cash at bank |
The Dashboard screen#
Forecast → Dashboard is where profit and cash sit side by side, for whichever year the year picker is set to. Its KPI strip carries total revenue, gross margin, operating margin and closing balance.
The Cashflow card#
Monthly cash in and out as bars, with the running closing balance drawn over them as a line, on its own axis. Its strip gives you incomings, outgoings, closing balance and max cash requirement for the window.
Max cash requirement is the deepest the balance goes — the largest hole the plan has to fund. Plan against it, not against the closing balance, which only tells you where things end up.
Hovering anywhere in the chart gives you that month's figures. The table toggle in the card header swaps the chart for the bank balance as a statement.
The Profit and Loss card#
The same treatment for trading: revenue, gross profit, profit before tax and profit after tax, cumulative across the window, each a line you can switch off by selecting it in the legend. Its own table toggle swaps in the profit and loss statement.
Two cards, deliberately adjacent. Profit is on the left and cash is on the right, and the gap between them is the working-capital story — see Payment terms.
Why the balance can fall while profit rises#
A profitable month can still drain the bank. Sales count as revenue when you invoice them but reach the account when the customer pays; VAT is collected long before it is handed over; loan repayments never appear on the profit and loss at all. That is not an inconsistency between the two statements — it is what the two statements are for.
Related#
- Cash flow statement — every movement, line by line.
- The Runway dashboard — how long the balance lasts.
- Opening position — what the balance starts from.