Tetlock, who currently teaches at the Wharton School of Business, has spent 20 years of studying the impact of human judgement of political decision making and uses the book to make the assertion that forecasting, at least in the short term, can be performed with a high degree of accuracy. He introduces these categories – borrowed from Isaiah Berlin – in his 2015 book Superforecastering: The Art and Science of Prediction. Make sure to check them often, especially when you have unexpected expenses or successes.Behavioural scientist Philip Tetlock groups forecasters into two categories hedgehogs and foxes. These powerful tools in QuickBooks help you stay on track with your company growth plans.

You can use this functionality to see what happens when certain deals go through, drastic changes occur to your expenses, or an emergency situation requires more overhead. When you're putting figures into the forms on this tool, click 'Preview' to see the ways that your projections adjust.

Look at the report and see where your business cash flow ends up over the next six weeks.

You should already have your regular monthly costs in QuickBooks, but make sure you don't overlook one-time fees and those that recur on a quarterly or annual basis.

Type your business expenses into the Cash Outflows field.

Start with the steady income, and add in any payments that are likely to process during the six-week time span. Do your best to include all revenue sources so you can get a fairly accurate picture of your cash flow.

Put your predicted cash receipts into the Cash Inflows section.

If you're not sure what that is, either estimate the number or look at your past month to get a baseline.

Go to the 'Budgeting and Planning' option in the 'Company' menu.

You get a good look at the next six weeks of your company's financial future, which works well when you're ensuring that all the bills and employees will get paid in the next month. QuickBooks also has a Cash Flow Projector feature that is optimized for short-term forecasts. The historical information will help you understand how your forecasts fall into a certain range, the factors influencing your profits and losses, and how you can adjust your business activities to improve your cash flow.

This report shows you the actual cash flow that you had over the specified period.

Select the option 'Statement of Cash Flows.'.

Go to the Reports menu and click 'All Reports.'.

Compare your projection to previous cash flows with the help of a Statement of Cash Flows.

You may have missed an important purchase order, invoice or another detail that makes a big difference. If the report doesn't seem realistic, review the information that you have in your QuickBooks account. You can adjust this report based on specified periods, compensate for customers that you know are going to miss their due dates, and shift the date range.

View the report that QuickBooks puts together from your receivables, payables and bank accounts.

Choose the 'Company & Financial' option.

Please note that this report type is currently only available in QuickBooks Desktop Edition, not QuickBooks Online Edition. Use this process to put your report together.

QuickBooks can help you calculate expected cash flow. Typically, you have a short-term forecast that gives you visibility into the near future and a long-term view that assists you with larger plans. The cash flow forecast shows you estimates of your incoming revenue for a certain period.

If you don't know what the future holds, then you'll have a hard time planning your investments and taking advantage of promising opportunities. The money coming in gets allocated to your employees, suppliers and other expenses. Your company's cash flow forecast is the fuel that keeps things going and your business growing.

Cash forecaster