How to Build a 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast for a Cannabis Business

Why use a 13-week forecast instead of a monthly budget?

A budget tells you what the year should look like. A 13-week cash flow forecast tells you whether you can make payroll on the 14th. Thirteen weeks is one quarter, which in cannabis usually captures at least one quarterly estimated tax payment, several state tax remittances, multiple payroll cycles, and your inventory buying rhythm.

It's also built on the direct method: actual cash in and actual cash out, by week. No depreciation, no accruals, no accounting judgment calls. That makes it easy for owners, managers and lenders to read.

Cannabis businesses lean on it more than most because of three pressures:

• 280E. Adult-use operators often owe federal tax far larger than their book profit suggests, because most operating expenses aren't deductible.
• Tax timing. State cannabis excise and sales taxes are collected daily but paid out in lumps, on schedules that vary by state.
• Banking constraints. Cash-handling fees, armored-car schedules and the possibility of account disruption all affect when cash is actually usable.

What should a cannabis 13-week cash flow template include?

Keep one row per line item and one column per week, plus a total column. A clean structure looks like this:

1. Beginning cash.Bank balances plus vault and till cash you can actually use. Exclude floats needed to operate, or show them separately.
2. Receipts.Retail sales by tender type (cash, debit or cashless ATM, which may settle on a delay), wholesale collections by customer, and any other inflows. Remember that receipts include taxes you've collected on the state's behalf.
3. Operating disbursements.Inventory and product purchases, payroll and payroll taxes, rent and occupancy, banking and armored-car fees, utilities, insurance, software, marketing.
4. Tax disbursements.State excise and sales tax remittances on their actual due dates, and federal and state income tax estimates.
5. Financing and capital.Loan payments, equipment purchases, build-outs, owner distributions.
6. Ending cash, minimum balance and cushion.Ending cash rolls into next week's beginning cash. Compare it to a minimum operating balance you set, and highlight any week that falls below.

If your chart of accounts already separates these categories, you can pull history straight from the books to set your weekly assumptions.

How do you build a 280E tax reserve into the forecast?

The most common cash crisis we see in cannabis isn't a slow month. It's a tax bill that was never set aside for. Build the reserve in three steps:

• Estimate taxable income under 280E. For adult-use activity, start with gross receipts minus cost of goods sold. Most other operating expenses won't reduce federal taxable income. Your tax preparer should confirm the estimate and any deductions that still apply.
• Separate medical activity if you have it. State-licensed medical activity on or after April 28, 2026 is generally no longer subject to 280E, so its ordinary expenses can reduce taxable income. Dual-license operators need a documented allocation before the estimate means anything; see our Schedule III guide.
• Set aside cash weekly. Divide the estimated annual federal tax by 52 and move that amount into a reserve, ideally a separate account. Then schedule the actual estimated payments on their due dates, which depend on your entity type.

How should excise and sales taxes be timed in the forecast?

Cannabis taxes are where cash gets misread most often. Your daily deposits include tax money that isn't yours. Treat it that way:

• Know where the tax is imposed. Depending on the state, cannabis excise may be imposed at retail, at wholesale, by weight at cultivation, or some combination. Rules vary by state and sometimes by locality.
• Use actual due dates. Put each remittance in the week it will leave the account, not spread evenly. A monthly remittance due mid-month creates a visible dip.
• Watch prepayment or accelerated-payment rules. Some states require larger filers to pay more frequently. Confirm your schedule with your state agency or tax advisor.
• Track tax collected versus remitted. The liability balance on your books should equal what the forecast shows you'll remit next.

Our guide to recording and filing cannabis excise and sales taxes covers the accounting side.

What does a 13-week cash flow look like? (Illustrative example)

Here is a condensed forecast for a hypothetical single-store adult-use dispensary, grouped into three periods. All numbers are illustrative only.

What the forecast reveals: the business is roughly break-even on cash in normal weeks, and the quarterly federal payment, plus a third payroll in the last period, pulls ending cash down by $56,000. If this operator's minimum operating balance is $175,000, there's only $28,000 of cushion at quarter-end. That's the moment to slow inventory buys slightly, delay a planned equipment purchase, or start setting aside the next quarter's tax weekly so the next payment doesn't hit all at once.

How do you keep the forecast accurate week to week?

• Roll it weekly. Replace last week's forecast with actuals, add a new week 13, and adjust assumptions.
• Compare forecast to actual. Track the variance by line. If receipts are consistently over-forecast, fix the assumption, not just the number.
• Start from reconciled cash. Beginning cash should tie to bank and vault balances. Strong daily cash controls and vault logs make that easy.
• Assign an owner. One person updates it; the owner or CFO reviews it in a short weekly meeting.
• Run a downside case. Copy the forecast and cut receipts by a meaningful amount, or delay a large collection by a few weeks. If the downside case breaches your minimum balance, decide now what you'd cut first.

For multi-location or vertical operators, build one tab per location or license and a consolidated summary. That shows which part of the business funds the rest, and it keeps medical and adult-use cash needs visible separately.

Building and maintaining this forecast is a core part of our fractional CFO work. If you want a second set of eyes on your medical and adult-use split before you set a tax reserve, our free Schedule III Split Check is a good starting point.

Frequently asked questions

Published October 21, 2026 by Cash Crop CFO. General information only, current as of publication, and not legal or tax advice for your specific situation.