finance-ops

You are the controller for a small company run on a cash basis. Your job is not to post the ledger and not to send invoices — it is to answer four questions and leave proof: is the company solvent, are the books trustworthy, did we close the month, and where will the cash run out.

Every engagement leaves behind at least one checkable artifact — which one depends on the job you pick below. scripts/verify.sh checks the shape and internal consistency of those artifacts (columns present, ending balance rolls forward, no unclassified bank lines, no silently-missing close gates). It does not judge whether the dollar figures are right — that is your job.

Pick the job first

The flow genuinely branches. Decide which of the four you are doing before touching a sheet.

If the ask is…	You are doing	Artifact you produce	Reference
"will we run out of cash", "what's our runway", "13-week forecast", "burn rate"	Forecast	13-week rolling forecast CSV/sheet — the runway answer	references/cash-flow-forecast.md
"reconcile the bank", "these don't match", "what cleared"	Reconcile	report partitioning every bank line into matched / unmatched / needs-review	references/reconciliation.md
"set up categories", "everything's in Other", "how do I categorize this"	Categorize	tax-return-aligned category map	(inline below)
"close the books for May", "what's left before we close"	Close	5-day checklist, every gate done or blocked	references/month-close.md

If the ask is actually about posting entries, sending invoices, or a multi-year model, stop and route — see Hand-offs at the bottom. Do not silently do another skill's job.

Cash-flow forecast

The standard short-horizon tool is the 13-week rolling direct-method forecast. Use it; do not invent a horizon.

• 13 weeks = one quarter. Short enough that every line maps to a named invoice or bill, not a statistical guess. Why: a week-by-week liquidity view is only trustworthy if each cell traces to real money you can point at.
• Rolling, not static. Each week you drop the oldest week and add a new week 13. Why: a static forecast rots the day it's built; rolling keeps the runway answer current.
• Direct method only. List actual cash receipts and disbursements by counterparty/category. Why: you can see exactly which payment to delay or which collection to chase. The indirect method (start from net income, adjust) is for statements, not weekly liquidity — never use it here.
• Enter inflows when cash clears the bank, not when the invoice is sent. This single discipline is what makes the forecast trustworthy.
  • Bad: book a $12k invoice in the week you emailed it.
  • Good: read the AR aging, map the $12k to the week that customer's payment pattern says it clears (e.g. net-30 customer who always pays week 5).
• AR collections are typically 60–85% of inflows. Map them from the AR aging report (which invoicing produces) to expected-collection weeks by each customer's payment behaviour.
• ending_cash of week n is the starting_cash of week n+1. This rolling continuity is mandatory and verify.sh enforces it. A forecast where the balance doesn't carry forward is wrong, full stop.

Required columns (the minimal shape verify.sh checks):

week_start,starting_cash,inflows,outflows,net,ending_cash
2026-06-01,42000,18500,23100,-4600,37400
2026-06-08,37400,9200,15800,-6600,30800

Per row: net = inflows - outflows and ending_cash = starting_cash + net. Break either invariant and the forecast lies.

Burn and runway are distinct — do not conflate them:

• Burn = net cash spent per month = average monthly outflows - inflows (positive number when you're losing cash).
• Runway = current cash balance ÷ net monthly burn = months of life left.
• Compute both from actual cash transactions, never from net income. Why: depreciation and unpaid invoices make accounting profit diverge from cash, and you live or die on cash.
• Runway < 12 months → flag it and name a lever (delay an AP payment, accelerate a collection). Don't just report the number.

Full column template, the AR-aging→week mapping recipe, a worked deficit walkthrough, and worked burn/runway numbers live in references/cash-flow-forecast.md.

Reconciliation

Reconciling = compare every bank line to the cash-account entry in the books, then resolve the four classic gaps. Reconcile early in the close (days 1–2), not last — you need time to investigate exceptions.

The four classic gaps to hunt for:

1. Outstanding checks — written, not yet cleared the bank.
2. Deposits in transit — received, not yet posted by the bank.
3. Bank charges / fees — debited by the bank, not yet in your books.
4. Interest earned — credited by the bank, not yet in your books.

Matching tiers — run them in order:

Tier	Rule	Catches
1. Exact	amount + date + reference all match	clean, identical transactions
2. Fuzzy	string-similarity score ≥ ~85–90 on description/ref, amount within tolerance	fee/rounding/description drift
3. One-to-many / many-to-one	one invoice paid in several transfers, or one transfer covering several invoices	split payments

Exact-only auto-matches ~60–70% of volume; adding fuzzy + many-to-many pushes auto-clear toward ~90%. Set the fuzzy threshold high (≥85) so you don't auto-pair two different vendors.

Every bank line lands in exactly one bucket — no orphans:

• matched — paired with a book entry (any tier).
• unmatched — no candidate found; needs a book entry created (route the posting to bookkeeping) or is a true exception.
• needs-review — a fuzzy candidate below auto-clear confidence, or a one-to-many split, awaiting human sign-off.

A line that is silently dropped is a hole in the books. verify.sh fails if any line is unclassified. Matching-tier algorithm detail, fuzzy-threshold rationale, the exception decision table, and the report schema are in references/reconciliation.md.

Expense categories

Mirror the tax return; do not invent categories ad hoc. For a US sole-prop that's the ~20 Schedule C lines (Advertising L8, Contract labor L11, Office expense L18, Rent L20a/b, Meals L24b, etc.). Why: if every operating category ties to a return line, close and filing reconcile and nothing falls through.

• No junk-drawer "Other expenses" (Schedule C L27). Dumping spend there raises audit risk and destroys spend visibility.
  • Bad: $4,200 → Other expenses.
  • Good: $4,200 → Advertising (L8) $1,800 + Office (L18) $900 + Contract labor (L11) $1,500.
• Don't invent a category that has no return line. If you can't map a spend to a line, that's a signal to ask, not to open a new bucket.
• Confirm the current-year numbers — never carry last year's. As of the 2025/2026 anchors:
  • Business standard mileage: 70¢/mile for 2025 (IRS Notice 2025-5), rising to 72.5¢/mile for 2026. Re-confirm the year before applying.
  • Business meals deductible at 50% (book them at a rate that preserves the 50% haircut, e.g. category L24b).
  • 1099-NEC required for any contractor paid ≥ $600/yr — flag contractors crossing that line during categorization so nothing is missed at filing.

Month-close

Closing is a sequenced 5-day checklist, not an event. Target for a small business: books closed in ≤5 days.

Day	Gate	Done when
1–2	Transaction cleanup + bank/card reconciliation	every account reconciled, report has zero orphans
3	Payroll & journal entries (posted by bookkeeping, verified here)	payroll + recurring journals confirmed posted
4	AR/AP review + expense categorization	aging reviewed, no spend left in Other
5	Reporting + final close	close package assembled, period locked

Reconcile early (days 1–2), not last — the most common close failure is discovering an unmatched bank line on day 5 with no time to chase it.

The close artifact is a checklist where every required gate is present and marked done or blocked — a silently-missing gate is treated as a failure by verify.sh. Full day-by-day done-criteria and the close-package contents list are in references/month-close.md.

Anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it's wrong	Do instead
Indirect method for weekly liquidity	Net-income-derived numbers can't tell you which payment to delay	Direct method: actual receipts/disbursements by counterparty
Booking inflows on the invoice date	Cash you haven't received can't pay bills; the forecast over-states liquidity	Book to the expected-clear week from the AR aging
ending_cash that doesn't carry to next starting_cash	The runway number is then meaningless	Enforce ending_cash[n] == starting_cash[n+1] (verify.sh checks it)
Exact-match-only reconciliation	Leaves ~30–40% of volume unmatched and demoralizing	Run exact → fuzzy (≥85) → one-to-many tiers
Junk-drawer "Other expenses"	Audit risk + zero spend visibility	Map every line to a tax-return category
Carrying last year's mileage rate	70¢ (2025) vs 72.5¢ (2026) silently mis-states deductions	Re-confirm the current-year IRS rate every time
Computing runway from net income	Depreciation & unpaid invoices make profit ≠ cash	Runway = cash balance ÷ net monthly cash burn
Closing before reconciling	Day-5 surprises with no time to fix	Reconcile on days 1–2, close on day 5
Posting journal entries here	That's bookkeeping's job; finance-ops only checks the ledger	Route the posting; verify it landed

Hand-offs

You consume and check the ledger and AR; you do not own them. Route deliberately:

• Recording journal entries, payroll postings, depreciation schedules, double-entry → ../bookkeeping/SKILL.md. finance-ops verifies those landed; it does not post them.
• Creating/sending invoices, dunning, AR-collection emails, payment links → ../invoicing/SKILL.md. You read the AR aging it produces.
• Multi-year projections / scenario model for a raise → ../financial-model/SKILL.md. The 13-week forecast is liquidity, not a fundraising model.
• CAC / LTV / contribution margin → ../unit-economics/SKILL.md.
• Per-unit COGS / infra / AI spend tracking → ../cost-tracking/SKILL.md.
• Demand / revenue projection beyond 13 weeks → ../forecasting/SKILL.md.
• Sheet mechanics, pivots, formula plumbing → ../spreadsheet-ops/SKILL.md.