Vital Sign 01 of 05
Cash Pulse™
How many days of operating cash remain at current burn rate. Not a projection. Not a forecast. The number.
Cash Pulse Monitor
Below Threshold
47
days
-18 days from last month
Operating cash
$84,200
Monthly burn rate
$53,800
Trend (90 days)
Declining
What Cash Pulse Measures
Three factors. Interconnected. Each one moves the others.
Available Cash
Liquid funds you can actually use. Excludes restricted accounts, deposits, and reserves already committed elsewhere.
Burn Rate
Net cash consumed monthly. Actual outflows minus reliable inflows, averaged over 90 days. Not what you budgeted. What happened.
Trajectory
Direction and velocity. Stable runway at 60 days is different from 60 days and falling.
Conditions That Typically Precede Runway Compression
These patterns often appear 60-90 days before runway becomes visibly constrained. They're in the data. They're rarely in the reports.
Receivables aging beyond normal collection cycles
Operating expenses growing faster than revenue
Customer concentration increasing dependency risk
Seasonal patterns not provisioned for in cash reserves
Example Observation
Below Threshold
Condition Observed
Cash runway has declined from 68 days to 47 days over the past 30 days. At current trajectory, runway will drop below 30 days within 4 weeks.
Contributing Factors
AR aging increase
+12 days avg
Operating expenses
+8.4% MoM
Largest customer
42 days overdue
How This Appears in Practice
What the monitoring surfaced. What the owner did about it.
Regional Services Company
$2.4M annual revenue · 18 employees
Condition Observed
Conditions Surfaced by Helcyon
Owner Decisions (Their Choice)
2.8 → 4.4
Months of Runway
+47 days
Runway Extended
30 days
Time to Outcome
Vital Sign 01 of 05 · Defined
What Cash Pulse™ is
Cash Pulse™ is the first of Helcyon's five Business Vital Signs. It reads liquidity: the liquid cash a business can actually use, the net cash it consumes each month, and how many days of operating cash remain at the current burn rate. It is a reading of what the transactions show, not a projection.
Also searched as: cash runway reading, business liquidity vital sign
Questions about Cash Pulse
What does Cash Pulse measure?
Three things. Available cash: liquid funds you can actually use, excluding restricted accounts, deposits, and reserves already committed elsewhere. Burn rate: actual outflows minus reliable inflows, averaged over 90 days. Runway: how many days of operating cash remain at that burn rate, and whether that number is rising or falling.
How is Cash Pulse different from a cash flow forecast?
A forecast projects what might happen. Cash Pulse reports what the transactions show has happened and where that leaves the business today. Direction matters as much as the level: stable runway at 60 days is a different reading from 60 days and falling.
Why can a profitable business have a weak Cash Pulse?
Profit is an accounting result and cash is timing. Revenue booked but not collected, deposits already committed, and expenses that land before income arrives can leave a profitable business short of usable cash. Cash Pulse reads the cash, not the P&L.
Where does the data come from?
A read-only connection to QuickBooks Online or Xero. Helcyon reads the underlying transactions. It cannot move money or change entries.
Know the Number
Continuous monitoring. Plain-language summaries. What you do about it is your call.
Read-only connection · Your data stays yours