Cash forecasting is the practice of estimating future cash positions from current balances, expected inflows, and expected outflows. In finance systems, the forecast may combine bank feeds, accounts receivable, accounts payable, billing schedules, and planning assumptions to predict liquidity over days or weeks.
In cyber security, cash forecasting matters because it is only as trustworthy as the data behind it. If an attacker can tamper with source systems, poison uploaded spreadsheets, or alter integration feeds, the forecast may look valid while steering the business toward bad decisions. Defenses focus on approved data sources, reconciliation, lineage, access control, and anomaly detection so changes can be traced and challenged. A secure forecast is not just a model output; it is a controlled workflow with auditable inputs and repeatable calculations.