Liquidity Stress Test
Cash Flow & Treasury
Quick Answer
Describe your cash position and 3 realistic adverse scenarios. Paste into Claude or ChatGPT. Get survival analysis for each scenario with specific actions required to survive and a liquidity risk rating.
What You Get
A liquidity stress test covering 3 realistic adverse scenarios with cash impact modeling, survival analysis for each scenario, specific survival actions and their cash impact, and a liquidity risk rating for the business.
Who Is This For
CFOs preparing board risk presentations, finance teams conducting annual liquidity reviews, lenders assessing borrower resilience, and founders who want to understand their worst-case cash exposure.
About This Template
A liquidity stress test asks the question: what is the worst realistic combination of events that could happen to our cash position, and would we survive it? This template guides CFOs through defining realistic stress scenarios for their business, then uses AI to model the liquidity impact of each scenario, calculate whether the business survives, and produce a specific survival action plan for each scenario. Particularly valuable for board presentations, lender conversations, and annual financial risk reviews.
Fill In Your Details
Your company name
e.g. $2.4M cash plus $500K undrawn credit line
e.g. $720K per month including $420K payroll
e.g. Largest customer (18% of revenue) goes bankrupt and stops paying immediately
e.g. Revenue growth stops and MRR declines 5% per month for 6 months due to market downturn
e.g. Key enterprise deal falls through costing $1.2M in expected ARR plus $180K already spent on onboarding
Cost cuts available, assets that could be sold, additional credit that could be arranged, investors who could bridge
Gather these details then use them to fill in the prompt below.
AI Prompts
Generate liquidity stress test
Paste this prompt into Claude or ChatGPT with your scenarios filled in.
You are a CFO conducting a liquidity stress test for board review. Using the information below, produce a comprehensive stress test analysis. Company: [company_name] Current liquidity: [current_cash] Monthly costs: [monthly_costs] Scenario 1: [scenario_1] Scenario 2: [scenario_2] Scenario 3: [scenario_3] Available survival levers: [available_levers] For each scenario produce: 1. Cash Impact — quantify the monthly and total cash impact of the scenario 2. Survival Analysis — does the company survive this scenario without action? How long until cash reaches zero? 3. Survival Actions — specific actions required to survive, with their cash impact and timeline 4. Survival Probability — with actions taken, what is the likelihood of survival? 5. Recovery Timeline — how long to return to baseline after the scenario resolves? Then produce: - Combined Scenario — what happens if scenarios 1 and 2 occur simultaneously? - Liquidity Risk Rating — rate overall liquidity risk as Strong, Adequate, Vulnerable, or Critical - Board Recommendation — one paragraph for the board on liquidity risk and recommended pre-emptive actions Be honest. Boards need accurate risk assessment not reassurance.
Sample Output
This is an example of what AI produces when you use this template.
Scenario 1 Survival Analysis
Scenario: Largest customer (18% of revenue) stops paying immediately. Cash impact: $153,000 monthly revenue loss plus $85,000 in uncollectable AR immediately written off equals $238,000 total immediate impact. Monthly burn increases from $130,000 to $283,000. Without action: runway reduces from 18 months to 8.5 months. The company survives this scenario without emergency action — $2.4M cash provides sufficient buffer to replace the customer revenue. Survival actions to accelerate recovery: activate 3 enterprise pipeline deals currently at proposal stage, offer existing customers an incentive to expand, and immediately begin recruitment to replace the lost revenue within 4 months. With actions: full revenue replacement within 5 months, runway never falls below 6 months.
Liquidity Risk Rating and Board Recommendation
Liquidity Risk Rating: ADEQUATE. The business has sufficient liquidity to survive any single stress scenario and most combination scenarios with prompt management action. The primary vulnerability is the combination of scenarios 1 and 2 simultaneously, which would reduce runway to 4 months and require immediate cost action. Board Recommendation: The current liquidity position is healthy but not stress-resistant against combined adverse scenarios. We recommend two pre-emptive actions: first, increase the undrawn credit facility from $500K to $1.5M before it is needed — banks are most accommodating when you do not urgently need the money; second, reduce customer concentration from 18% to under 12% for the largest customer within 12 months by growing other revenue streams. These actions would move the liquidity rating from Adequate to Strong.