Help - Suggestions for Cash Flow Forecast of Payroll Expenses

gheiler

Hi Community,

 

Hoping to get some ideation from headcount / workforce planning pros out there. 

 

Assuming you already have a typical P&L (accrual) forecast for all major Payroll costs: Gross Payroll, Taxes, Benefits, Commissions, Bonus, etc. that you trust to be accurate - does anyone have an opinion on some typical ways to forecast the Cash for these expenses? Some complexities exist around different Countries/Regions having different Tax payment timings, for example, but can anyone offer some high level guidance?

 

Do you typically get opinions from Accounting folks and simply add in assumptions about the timing between accrued Payroll forecast and when the actual Cash impacts will hit? Do you build out seasonal and regional rules? Do you look at past Cash actuals for these accounts? Our client's current solution is overcomplicated (we are working on simplifying a beastly 13,000 character formula as a starting place, attached to this question) and attempts to spread the Payroll expense forecast across months based on user inputs, and the client finds it to consistently be 10-15% off the cash Actuals when they compare versions, when it should be relatively straightforward to forecast these cashflows. 

 

Thanks for any help and brainstorming on this one.