Startup Runway & Burn Planner: Cash-Out Date & Burn Multiple (Excel)

The first is revenue that is not yet cash. This model bills monthly and lets you set the share of a month's billings that arrives the following month. Set it to zero if you are paid on invoice; set it to a third and watch the runway shorten without a single growth assumption changing.

The second is payroll that is not really in the plan. Payroll here is not typed into the cash flow. It is built from a thirty-row headcount plan, person by person, grossed up by employer social charges and benefits, and scaled by a hiring pace multiplier so you can model a slowdown without deleting anyone. Change one start month and the cash-out date moves.

WHAT IS INSIDE
Eleven tabs: Read Me, Dashboard, Assumptions, Headcount Plan, Operating Costs, Revenue Plan, Cash Flow, Runway and Burn, What It Costs, Scenarios, Checks. Thirty headcount rows, twenty-four operating cost lines, thirty-six months, three scenarios switched from one cell.

The Runway and Burn tab reports runway at every month, not just at the start: cash at that point divided by the average net burn over a trailing window you set. The cash-out date is the first month the balance is genuinely negative, and an integrity check proves the month reported is the right one.

It also computes the burn multiple - net burn over a trailing quarter divided by the net new ARR added in that quarter. That is the number investors quote back at founders now, and it answers a question runway cannot: not how long you last, but how much you are paying for each dollar of new recurring revenue.
The What It Costs tab answers the two marginal questions directly. Enter a salary and it tells you how many weeks of runway that hire costs. A second table shows what a five, ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty percent cut buys, in months.

THE WORKED EXAMPLE
A twenty-two person plan, forty-five thousand of starting monthly recurring revenue, two point four million in the bank, and a cash-out date fifteen months out. One hire costs 5.8 weeks of runway. A ten percent cut buys 1.8 months.

Twelve integrity checks must all read PASS. No macros, no add-ins, no external links, no password protection, no locked cells.

This workbook models the arithmetic of your own plan. It is not financial advice.