Model what a new hire does to the next 12 months of cash

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name: hiring-cash-scenario
description: "Use when the user has a RoboLedger connection and asks whether the company can afford a new hire, and wants a what-if scenario on the books projecting all three statements month by month and the month cash gets tight. Triggers: can we afford to hire, hiring plan, cash runway, headcount scenario."
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# Model what a new hire does to the next 12 months of cash

Build a what-if scenario on the books themselves, with all three statements projected month by month, and see the month cash gets tight.

## When to use it

"Can we afford to hire in October?" is a cash question more than a profit question, and a spreadsheet answer usually skips the balance sheet: receivables, payables, loan payments. A RoboLedger scenario projects the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow forward from your last closed month, and every month has to balance. Forecasts are calculated, not generated. The same assumptions always give the same numbers.

**Setup.** Your books connected through RoboLedger ([Connect your books](https://roboledger.ai/docs/connect-your-books)), a mapped chart of accounts, and at least one closed month or your plan history filled in. How scenarios work: [Plan and forecast with your AI assistant](https://roboledger.ai/docs/plan-and-forecast). Nothing about planning writes to QuickBooks.

**Where it works.** Needs your books connected to your AI assistant through RoboLedger.

## Ask the user for

- The role, the monthly cost including taxes and benefits, and the start month.
- Any revenue the hire is expected to bring, and when.
- The cash floor you don’t want to go below.

Ask for anything missing before you start. Never invent a figure to fill a gap.

## Do this

Carry out the request below. Fill each [bracketed] item from what the user gave you.

Build two forecast scenarios for the next 12 months from our last closed month.

Baseline: carry forward our current run rate. Before you run it, tell me about any one-off in the last closed month that would be wrong to repeat every month, and set those lines to their normal amount.

Hire: the same as the baseline, plus [role] starting [month] at [monthly cost including taxes and benefits] a month in [payroll line]. [If the hire brings revenue: add revenue of [amount] a month from [month].]

For both scenarios, show me month by month:
- net income
- ending cash
- the lowest cash month

Then tell me whether ending cash goes below [cash floor] in either scenario, and in which month.

List every assumption you set, so I can check it on the Plan page.

## Before you hand it over

Tell the user which of these checks they still need to make:

- Open the Plan page and read the assumptions row by row. They should match what you asked for.
- Check the carried-forward lines for anything seasonal the scenario will wrongly repeat.
- A forecast is only as good as its drivers. Change the one you’re least sure of and see how much the answer moves.

The assistant drafts. The person whose name is on the work approves it.

## What a good answer looks like

*Illustrative figures for a made-up company.*

**One-off in the last closed month.** August included a $12,000 annual insurance payment. I set that line to its usual $1,000 a month in both scenarios.

**Assumptions**
- Baseline: lines carried forward from August; schedules continue.
- Hire: Wages and salaries +$7,800 a month from October. No added revenue.

**Ending cash (Baseline → Hire)**
- Sep: 96,400 → 96,400
- Oct: 99,000 → 91,200
- Nov: 101,600 → 86,000
- Dec: 104,200 → 80,800
- …
- Apr: 114,600 → 60,000
- May: 117,200 → 54,800
- …
- Aug: 125,000 → 39,200

The baseline stays above your $60,000 floor all year. The hire scenario reaches the floor in April and goes below it in May, because the hire adds $7,800 a month of cost and, as modelled, no revenue. If the role brings in revenue, add it and run the scenario again. It needs roughly $5,200 a month of collected revenue from May to stay above the floor through next August.

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From the Harbinger FinLab skill library: https://harbinger.finance/skills/hiring-cash-scenario