Cash Flow Model

The cash flow model is where you calculate how a strategic initiative affects the future cash flow of your organization. Each alternative has its own model, so you can compare the Base Alternative with Strategic Building Blocks and Strategic Alternatives and see which one creates the most value.

This page describes how you work in the cash flow model: where you find it, what it looks like, how cells behave when you edit them, and what each action in the right-click menu does.

Finding the cash flow model

The cash flow model belongs to an alternative. Open the Base Alternative, a Strategic Building Block or a Strategic Alternative, and you find the model on three tabs. All three tabs use the same spreadsheet grid and work the same way.

🔧 Configuration: Your administrator assigns these permissions to user groups. Model and External Data apply per node in the organizational structure. Model Assumptions applies to the whole application.

🔧 Configuration: Your administrator decides which external data rows exist for each node. If nothing is set up for the node you select, the External Data tab shows an empty grid.

👉 Learn more about permissions

Moving between nodes and alternatives

Use the tree on the left to move through the model. Click a node and the grid loads the model sheet for that node and scrolls to it. Higher nodes in the tree normally show more aggregated figures. To see the same sheet for another alternative, open that alternative and go to the same tab.

The cash flow grid

The cash flow model looks and works much like an Excel sheet. Each row is a line in the model, and each column is one year.

The bar above the grid

From left to right, the bar above the grid contains:

• Cell address: the address of the selected cell, for example M5.

• Formula bar: shows the formula or value of the selected cell. You can edit the cell here as well as in the grid.

• Number of decimals: two buttons that decrease or increase the decimals shown in the selected cells.

• Toolbar: the Historical years toggle, Layouts and, on the Cash Flow tab, Export. See Toolbar actions.

📌 Note: The decimals buttons only change how many decimals you see in your browser. The change is not saved and does not affect the stored values.

Columns and years

• The first column holds the row captions. It stays in place when you scroll sideways.

• After the caption column comes one column per year, from the first to the last year of the project. The model works in whole years only. There are no month or quarter columns and no totals column.

• Column headers show the year and the column letter, for example 2025 (M). You use the letter when you write cell references in formulas.

• On the Cash Flow and External Data tabs, the caption column header shows which node you are looking at as you scroll, in the form "Node or material, Mill, alternative short name".

• You can drag a column edge to change its width.

• To make the grid larger or smaller, use the zoom in your browser, for example Ctrl and the mouse wheel. The grid has no zoom setting of its own.

The years are divided into four periods (historical, forecast, trend and the period after), set in the project settings. The model can use a different formula in each period.

👉 Learn more about project settings and periods

Rows and sections

• Rows are numbered from 1. Row 1 is an empty system row that you cannot edit. The model starts on row 2.

• Rows can be grouped into sections. Click the plus or minus button next to a section row to expand or collapse it. The grid remembers which sections you have open when the data reloads.

• Rows can be hidden. A marker in the row header shows where hidden rows are. See Right-click actions for how to hide and unhide rows.

• If you do not have read access to a row, the row is grey and shows "N/A".

Cell formatting

The model builder decides how each row looks: background and font color, font size, bold, italic, underline, alignment, top border and number format. Percentage rows are shown as percent. Other numbers follow the decimal separator in your regional settings. You cannot change this formatting in the grid.

Cell colors

On top of the model formatting, Weissr colors cells to show where manual input has been made and where something is wrong.

If a cell has more than one of these states, error wins over circular reference, and circular reference wins over the input colors.

💡 Tip: The color tells you where the input came from. When you open a Strategic Alternative, a light yellow or orange cell shows a value inherited from the Base Alternative, and a cyan cell shows a value inherited from one of its Strategic Building Blocks. A green cell shows a value entered in the Strategic Alternative itself. Input in the Strategic Alternative overrides input from its building blocks and the Base Alternative.

Other markers in the grid

• Comment: a small triangle in the corner of the cell. Hover over the cell to read it.

• Comments from other alternatives: a corner marker. Hover over the cell to see each comment with the name of the alternative it was written in.

• Goal seek cells: cells that can be used as a goal have a dashed border. When you select one, the cell that goal seek will change gets a thicker dashed border.

• Blank cells: a cell is blank when its value was deleted, when the asset is retired, or when the row has no formula for that year.

Status bar

When you select more than one cell, the bar under the grid shows the Average, Count and Sum of the selection.

Editing cells

Entering a value or formula

1. Select the cell.

2. Start typing, press F2 or double-click the cell. You can also click in the formula bar.

3. Type a number, or a formula that starts with =. In percentage rows you can type values such as 5%.

4. Press Enter to confirm and move down, or Tab to confirm and move right. Press Esc to cancel.

Formulas use Excel syntax and A1 cell references. If you type something that is not valid, the value is rejected and you see the message "Validation failed".

📌 Note: Pressing Enter on a selected cell does not start editing. Type directly, press F2 or double-click.

Changing an existing formula

When a cell holds a formula, you can change it or replace it.

• To add to the formula, press F2, double-click the cell or click in the formula bar. The existing formula opens, for example =D71/D36*1000, and you can add to it, for example =D71/D36*1000+65.

• To replace the formula, select the cell and start typing. What you type replaces the formula.

⚠️ Warning: Weissr does not ask you to confirm before you replace a model formula. The cell then stops following the model and shows an input color. To go back to the model formula, right-click the cell and choose Reset cells.

Referring to other cells

While you write a formula, type an operator such as =, + or ( and then click a cell or drag over a range. Weissr inserts the reference for you. Each reference in the formula gets its own color, and the referenced cells get a border in the same color, so you can see what the formula uses.

Saving and recalculation

Every change is saved as soon as you confirm it. There is no Save button. Weissr then recalculates the model and updates the affected cells in the grid. If you are editing a cell while the results come in, the grid waits until you have finished.

• If the calculation fails for a cell you changed, you see the message "Input error".

• If saving fails, you see an error message and the sheet reloads.

⚠️ Warning: There is no undo in the cash flow model. To go back to an earlier value, use Cell logs... in the right-click menu, or Reset cells to go back to the model formula.

Copying and pasting

• Within the grid: copy with Ctrl+C and paste with Ctrl+V. Values and formulas are copied the way Excel does it, so relative references move with the paste. If you copy one cell and paste it over a range, the whole range gets the formula.

• From Excel or another program: paste with Ctrl+V. Weissr pastes the numbers as they are shown in Excel. A pasted value that starts with = is saved as a formula.

• Cut and drag-to-fill are not available.

When you paste a block of cells, the paste starts in the top-left cell of your selection.

• If you select a larger area than you copied, the copied block repeats to fill the selection.

• If you select a smaller area, or a single cell, the paste fills as many cells as you copied, even beyond your selection.

💡 Tip: Excel pastes the numbers as it displays them. Increase the number of decimals in Excel before you copy, so you do not lose precision.

📌 Note: Use a comma or a full stop as the decimal separator, and leave out thousands separators. A value such as 1 234,5 is rejected as invalid, and 1,234 is read as 1.234, not 1234.

Keyboard shortcuts

Read-only cells and models

The whole grid is read-only when:

• you do not have update rights for the tab on the selected node, or

• the project is locked.

Single cells are read-only when:

• the model builder has made the row read-only, or it is a text row,

• the year is outside the periods your model view lets you edit, or

• the asset is retired. The cell is then also blank.

The caption column can never be edited.

Right-click actions

Right-click a cell or a selection to open the context menu. Which items you see depends on your permissions, and which items you can click depends on what you have selected.

Cash Flow tab

Cash Flow Settings and External Data tabs

• Cash Flow Settings has the same menu without Hide rows, Unhide rows and Unhide all rows.

• External Data has the same menu, including Link to Base Alternative in Strategic Building Blocks and Strategic Alternatives. NEW IN 5.3.7

🔒 If you cannot edit the grid, because you lack update rights or the project is locked, the menu only shows Copy, Cell logs... and Refresh. A selection that includes row 1 also disables the editing actions.

📌 Note: On the Cash Flow Settings tab, you cannot reset exchange-rate rows when the project uses global exchange rates.

💡 Tip: Link to Base Alternative links cells in one alternative. To compare a row with the Base Alternative in every alternative, define it once with the BASE function in the model builder.

👉 Learn more about the BASE function

Goal seek

Goal seek finds the input value that makes a result reach a target, in the same way as Goal Seek in Excel. The model builder decides which cells can be used as goals and which cell is changed.

1. Right-click a cell with a formula and choose Goal seek.

2. Set cell shows the cell you selected.

3. In To value, enter the value you want the cell to reach.

4. In By changing cell, enter the address of the cell Weissr should change, for example P12.

5. Click Calculate. Weissr shows the value it found for the changing cell and the result.

6. Click Apply to write the value into the model, or Cancel to leave the model as it was.

Cell logs

Cell logs show every earlier value and formula of a cell, with the user who entered it and the date.

1. Right-click the cell and choose Cell logs....

2. The Logs dialog lists each change with User, Date and Old value.

3. To bring back an earlier value, click Insert on that row. Insert is only shown if you can edit the cell.

Toolbar actions

Historical years

Turn off Historical years to hide the years before the current year of the project, so you only see the forecast. Weissr remembers your choice. It is on by default.

Layouts

A layout shows only a chosen set of rows. Open Layouts to create, apply, edit or delete a layout, or click Reset to go back to all rows. A badge on the button shows when a layout is applied. While a layout is applied, you cannot hide or unhide rows.

👉 Learn more about cash flow model layouts

Export

On the Cash Flow tab, Export exports the model to Excel. You choose the nodes, whether to include sensitivity, and which layout to use for each sheet.

👉 Learn more about exporting the cash flow model

Model setup

You work in the model, but its structure is defined by the model builder and your administrators:

• Model building defines the rows, their formulas per period, formatting, and which rows are read-only or text rows.

• Model views in the Administration console decide which users can edit which periods, and which rows goal seek uses.

• Project settings set the period years, the current year, exchange rates and whether sensitivity is used.

👉 Learn more about model building

👉 Learn more about model sheets

👉 Learn more about model blocks