A £200,000 sales pipeline is not £200,000 of next month’s revenue, and it is not cash in the bank. A fundraising model becomes easier to test when the forecast follows each opportunity through winning the work, delivering it and collecting payment.
Scope: an illustrative UK project-services business forecasting in pounds for October 2026 to January 2027. Source checked on 20 September 2026. The exercise excludes VAT, taxes and costs and is not advice on revenue recognition for a particular contract.
Separate the four events
The UK Space Agency’s Financial Model Essentials recommends evidence-based revenue drivers, a traceable assumptions log and a connection between pipeline and forecast. Although written for space businesses, those modelling principles are useful in other sectors.
In your worksheet, give each opportunity a unique ID and separate columns for potential value, probability of winning, expected decision date, delivery period and payment timing. A probability is an assumption to challenge, not a contractual promise.
Worked example: four potential projects
Assume four distinct opportunities are each worth £50,000. Management assigns each a 50% win probability based on its own hypothetical evidence. The probability-weighted expected contract value is 4 × £50,000 × 50% = £100,000. That does not mean the business is certain to win exactly two projects.
For a simple base scenario, assume two projects are signed on 1 October, all work is delivered and recognised as revenue in November, and customers pay the full invoices in December. There are no deposits or opening receivables in this example.
October: £100,000 of new signed orders, but £0 revenue and £0 customer receipts under these assumptions.
November: £100,000 revenue and £100,000 invoiced, but £0 receipts. The simplified month-end customer receivable is £100,000.
December: £100,000 customer receipts and the receivable returns to £0. There is no second £100,000 of revenue merely because payment arrived.
Real contracts may have deposits, staged delivery, acceptance conditions or different accounting treatment. Replace the example’s recognition and billing assumptions with the treatment agreed for the actual work.
Use one source row for each opportunity
The common spreadsheet error occurs when a won project moves into a signed-orders tab but remains in the weighted pipeline. A model may then include both £100,000 of signed work and its old £50,000 weighted contribution, producing £150,000 for the same two projects.
Use the opportunity ID to control the transition. In this example, once signed, the project enters the confirmed-order forecast and its contribution to the open-pipeline forecast becomes zero. Archive the previous probability for comparison rather than losing the history.
Test concentration, not just the average
A downside case could assume only one project is won: £50,000 of November revenue and December receipts under the same timing assumptions. A separate case could keep both wins but delay collection. These scenarios answer different questions and should not be merged into one unexplained haircut.
Compare the forecast with the delivery team’s capacity. If two projects need the same specialist at the same time, a model that assumes both can be delivered unchanged needs supporting evidence or a revised schedule.
Prepare for review: bring the opportunity export with unique IDs, recent won/lost outcomes, expected delivery dates, customer payment terms and the logic used for stage probabilities. Add a check that no ID contributes to both open pipeline and signed orders.
Reconcile the pipeline between forecast versions
Keep a dated copy of the opportunity list before refreshing the forecast. Explain changes using new opportunities, wins, losses, revised values or probabilities, and timing movements. This practical control builds on the evidence-based assumptions and pipeline guidance linked above; it is not a prescribed accounting rule.
Illustrative movement check: start with £100,000 of probability-weighted open opportunities. Add £20,000 for new opportunities, remove £25,000 for work now won, remove £10,000 for lost opportunities and add £5,000 for net changes to the remaining values or probabilities. Closing weighted open pipeline is £100,000 + £20,000 − £25,000 − £10,000 + £5,000 = £90,000. Every movement here is a weighted amount, not the full contract value.
For example, the £25,000 removed for a win could represent one £50,000 opportunity previously weighted at 50%. Its open-pipeline contribution becomes zero; the separate signed-order schedule records £50,000. Revenue and cash still follow their own delivery, billing and collection assumptions. Do not label the £90,000 closing pipeline as monthly revenue or guaranteed cash.
Separate a later payment from a lost sale
For each changed opportunity, keep its ID, old and new status, value, probability, delivery date, expected receipt date, supporting note and responsible owner. Explain timing changes even where total weighted value stays the same. If an unchanged £50,000 invoice moves from December to January, December receipts fall by £50,000 and January receipts rise by £50,000; lifetime receipts do not increase. Keep the existing example’s VAT, tax and cost exclusions in mind.
In the cash-flow and fundraising workbook, use the resulting monthly expected receipts, not the total pipeline. Keep the opportunity-level schedule separately as supporting evidence. Do not assume the free cash model calculates win probabilities or revenue recognition. Reconcile each monthly input to that schedule and compare actual receipts with the prior forecast before updating it.
Before sharing a forecast with investors, record which version changed, why it changed and who checked it. The investor data-room reconciliation guide explains how to keep the model, accounts and presentation consistent. For an initial enquiry, send a summary rather than customer names, bank details or confidential contracts.
Pipeline-control addition and linked source checked on 20 September 2026. All figures above are fictional planning examples, not client results or forecasts of investment returns.
Bring the dated reconciliation and any unresolved assumptions to your modelling consultation.
Check whether win probabilities match completed outcomes
A stage percentage needs evidence, not just a familiar CRM default. Before carrying it into another forecast, back-test a dated group of comparable opportunities. This is a practical modelling check, not a promise that past conversion will repeat.
- Freeze the comparison: record the snapshot date, unique deal IDs, stage, contract value and expected decision date. Group similar services and sales processes; mixing renewals with first-time sales can hide different outcomes.
- Keep unresolved deals visible: record won, lost and still-open outcomes at the review date. Show how many remain unresolved; do not silently call them lost or present the completed subset as the whole pipeline.
- Compare count and value: calculate wins divided by completed decisions, and separately the value won divided by the value of those completed opportunities. One large contract can make these tell very different stories.
- Explain the next assumption: document the sample size, period, changed circumstances, evidence owner and review date. A small or unrepresentative cohort is a reason for a wider downside case, not false precision.
Illustrative example, not KBA client results: ten comparable proposals of £10,000 each, all now decided, had been weighted at 50% (£50,000). Three won: £30,000 and a 30% observed win rate by both count and value. That does not automatically justify setting every future proposal to 30%. Check whether the next cohort is comparable and retain a downside scenario. Contract wins still need separate delivery and payment dates before they become forecast revenue or receipts.
Add these columns to a separate opportunity schedule: snapshot date, deal ID, stage, value, assumed probability, actual outcome, outcome date and evidence note. Keep it alongside the cash-flow workbook; do not enter weighted sales as cash received.
Source checked 31 October 2026: the UK Space Agency’s financial model essentials guidance supports evidence-based assumptions, realistic conversion rates and comparison with historical performance. The checklist and example above are KBA’s practical illustration, not a government-prescribed method.
KBA provides financial modelling and fundraising support. Our free Excel resource hub can support initial planning. Request a consultation to discuss a model fitted to your sales process; no forecast guarantees sales or funding.