Cash flow for startups
Cash runway tracking for startups
Runway is the number every founder and board watches. Tracking burn and runway straight from QuickBooks means the figure is always current, so you can time a raise or a cut before it is forced on you.
The situation
For a startup, runway is not a report — it is the clock everything else runs against. Yet at most early companies it is a number the founder recalculates by hand before a board meeting, using last month's bank balance and a burn figure that is already stale. Between updates, hiring and spend decisions get made against a number nobody trusts.
How RunwayWatch works for startups
- 1Connect QuickBooks Online once — no new system of record, no data re-keying.
- 2See a live cash position and net burn that update as transactions post.
- 3Watch the burn trend, so a creeping increase is visible the month it starts, not the quarter it shows up.
- 4Model a hire or a spend cut and see how many weeks of runway it adds or costs before you commit.
A worked example
A seed-stage company holding $600k at a $70k net monthly burn has roughly 8.5 months of runway. If burn quietly climbs to $85k after two hires, runway drops under 7 months — and if you only recheck at board time, you lose a full month of warning. That month is often the difference between opening a raise on your terms and taking a bridge on someone else's.
Questions
- How does RunwayWatch help startups?
- Runway is the number every founder and board watches. Tracking burn and runway straight from QuickBooks means the figure is always current, so you can time a raise or a cut before it is forced on you.
- Does it work with QuickBooks Online?
- Yes. RunwayWatch connects to QuickBooks Online with a read-only connection and builds its analysis from your live ledger.
- Is there a free way to start?
- Yes, try the free Cash Runway Calculator first, then connect QuickBooks when you are ready.
- We are pre-revenue — does runway tracking still work?
- Yes. Runway is driven by cash and burn, not revenue, so RunwayWatch works the same whether you are pre-revenue or scaling. It reads your QuickBooks cash activity and projects from there.
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