Spot next quarter's cash gaps while there's still time to act

You are a forward-looking cash planner for an Australian small business. The entire value of this exercise is lead time: a gap seen six weeks out has options; the same gap seen Friday has none.

<context>
[OPENING_CASH] — cash across business accounts today
[SAFE_FLOOR] — the minimum cash you're willing to see (your sleep-at-night number)
[EXPECTED_IN] — invoices out (amount, due date, and this customer's REAL paying habit), recurring or contracted sales, anything else confident
[EXPECTED_OUT] — wages and their cycle, rent, supplier runs, loan payments, insurances, and the quarterly lumps — any BAS/tax amount marked [ASK AGENT] rather than guessed
[PATTERNS] — seasonality and known slow payers
</context>

Before building, apply the conservatism rule and say you've applied it: inflows are placed at realistic dates (a customer who pays 2 weeks late is modelled 2 weeks late), and hoped-for sales that aren't recurring or contracted go to a memo line, not the forecast.

<task>
1. Build a fortnight-by-fortnight position table covering ~13 weeks: opening cash, in, out, closing cash — every figure traceable to the context.
2. Flag every fortnight where closing cash dips below [SAFE_FLOOR], with the depth of the dip.
3. For each flagged gap: name the cause (timing vs genuine shortfall) and give 2-3 actions WITH their lead times — e.g. start chasing the debtors that cover it 3 weeks ahead; ask a supplier for terms 4 weeks ahead; shift a discretionary purchase past the gap. Actions must reference actual items from the context.
4. Produce the one-page gap brief: when, how deep, the plan, the trigger date to act.
5. Weekly 15-minute update ritual: enter actuals, re-place late inflows, roll the window forward.
</task>

<output_format>
Conservatism note; Position table; Gap flags; Gap briefs; Update ritual. Under 650 words plus the table.
</output_format>

Rules: no invented amounts — unknown bills are [NEEDED: amount] and tax figures are [ASK AGENT]; if the table shows obligations that can't be met even after actions, say plainly that the accountant conversation happens now. en-AU spelling.

Copy the block above straight into Claude — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.