Startup Finance & Runway

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Monthly close runs the 1st of each month · 8am and keeps the Runway dashboard fresh. The 1st of each month — recomputes the burn and the runway, weights the pipeline, and writes the note saying what it all rests on.
• Invoice cross-check runs mondays · 9am. Mondays — checks the money you have been told arrived against the money the ledger shows arriving.
• What is captured lands in the Finance ledger dataset, which lives at Data/Finance Ledger in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Company balance snapshots dataset, which lives at Data/Company Balance Snapshots in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Company budget dataset, which lives at Data/Company Budget in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Company dates dataset, which lives at Data/Company Dates in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Runway dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: in the bank · net burn, last full month · gross burn, last full month · months left · where the cash is heading · what went out, month by month · net, month by month · cash, as recorded · weighted pipeline — value x your own odds · budget against actual, last full month · payroll, tax and grant dates · what you hold, snapshot by snapshot · the scenario note · where the money goes · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Export ingest writes to Finance ledger · Finance capture writes to Finance ledger · Monthly close writes to Finance ledger · Export ingest records Company balance snapshots · Finance capture records Company balance snapshots · Finance ledger shown by Runway · Company balance snapshots shown by Runway · Runway kept fresh by Monthly close · Finance ledger checked by Invoice cross-check · Monthly close run by Cairn · Invoice cross-check run by Cairn · Cairn holds Export ingest · Cairn holds Finance capture · Budget and unit economics keeps Company budget · Payroll and tax dates writes to Company dates · Grants and credits writes to Company dates · Monthly close writes to Company dates · Company dates shown by Runway · Company budget read by Monthly close · Cairn holds Budget and unit economics · Cairn holds Payroll and tax dates · Cairn holds Grants and credits.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Look at Runway on the first of the month, after the Monthly close has run. In the bank and Months left are the two figures — and Months left always carries its basis beside it, so read that clause before you repeat the number to anyone.
• Add the export as soon as it exists, and tell Cairn it is there. An accounting export, a bookkeeping report or a bank statement anywhere in your vault is all Export ingest needs; it reads the columns back to you before it files anything, so a misread never becomes a month of wrong burn. A bank statement you have already imported as a table is read as it stands: your categories are carried across, and a transfer between the company's own accounts is left off.
• Say the cash position whenever you know it — “we’re at 176k this morning” — and Finance capture puts a snapshot on the record. That single line is what keeps Cash, as recorded honest between exports, and it is the one thing no file can tell you on a Tuesday.
• Read the two bars as a pair: What went out is spending alone, Net is spending less what came in. A month above the line on Net and a big bar on What went out together mean a heavy month that still paid for itself — which is a different decision from a heavy month that did not.
• Give your deals a probability you actually believe, on your deal book. Cairn never sets one, and a deal with no probability is simply left out of the weighted figure — so an unfilled column quietly shrinks the runway rather than inflating it.
• Ask Cairn the what-ifs rather than doing them on paper: “what happens to the runway if that hire starts in November”. You get the arithmetic and every assumption it used, and never a recommendation — the decision stays yours, and nothing here is financial advice.
• Set a budget in a sentence, or paste the one you keep: “payroll 25k a month, software 2k”. Budget and unit economics holds each line to the ledger’s own category, and on the 1st Budget against actual shows last month line by line, the lines that went over first. Ask “how are we doing against budget this month?” whenever you like for the month so far. The figures are yours; nothing here says whether a budget is right.
• For unit economics, say once which definitions you use — your board’s, your investors’ or your own. Cairn works each figure from the ledger and the numbers you give it, shows the sum with the definition beside it, and says when a figure is missing rather than guessing it.
• Tell Cairn where the company is and whether it runs a payroll, then ask when tax on wages and the next return are due. Payroll and tax dates reads the tax authority’s own pages and names the page; a date goes on Company dates only when you confirm it applies, and a date your accountant gave you goes on exactly as said. Tick each one off on the board when it is done; when it repeats, the close adds the next one for you to check.
• Ask about a grant, a tax credit or a relief by name, or what public schemes there are for a company like yours. Grants and credits lays out what each scheme’s own page says it is for, what it gives and when it closes — never whether you qualify — and keeps the deadline on Company dates if you decide to go for one.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• Where the numbers come from — which tool or bank, and whether a statement arrives by email at all. Said once, that line is the close’s entire outside reach; without it the Kit reads nothing beyond 1Presence.
• The column layout of your export, agreed once, so the next file reads itself without a question.
• The stated monthly burn, updated whenever it changes — it is only used until the ledger has real months to measure, and the board says which it is using.
• When the close runs, and whether the Monday cross-check runs at all — both can be retimed, paused or removed, and the records stay yours either way.
• Your budget lines, changed or removed whenever you like, and the definitions you use for unit economics, said once.
• Where the company is and whether it runs a payroll — the two facts every payroll and tax date turns on, kept once and used every time the dates are looked up.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit ends in a conversation with Cairn, not a run — because the first figures live in your head, not in an account anything can read. Cairn looks before it asks: it checks what you have already told 1Presence and any financial model, bank statement or accounting export in your vault, asking your permission to look there if it needs it, and shows you what it found so you can confirm or correct it. Then it asks only for the gaps: roughly what is in the bank today, what a normal month costs and what makes it up, whether money comes in yet, where your numbers usually come from (an accounting tool, a bank, your accountant’s email), and whether the company runs a payroll.
2. The cash figure is written to your balance snapshots as you say it, and that single row is what draws the board. The monthly costs are recorded as your own stated figure rather than turned into transactions nobody made — so until a real export lands, the runway rests on what you said, and every panel that uses it says so.
3. Near the end Cairn mentions once that the books close on the 1st, and that the close will ask at its first run whether it may look in your email for the newest statement or export. Nothing in the setup conversation asks for access to anything; that answer is yours to give later, and the whole Kit works by hand if it is no.
4. Once, in passing, Cairn also asks what you most want the Kit to keep an eye on — how long the cash lasts, a budget, the dates money leaves for payroll and tax — and notes the answer. If it is a budget, it offers to take the lines then or another time, and it never asks again.
5. Stop whenever you like: one balance figure already draws part of the board. Whatever is still missing, such as a statement or an export on the ledger so the burn can be measured rather than taken from your figure, waits on the Kit page with a way back to Cairn, and Cairn offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
6. After that: add an export or a statement to your vault, tell Cairn, and Export ingest reads it into the ledger. On the 1st the Monthly close measures the burn from those real months, redraws the runway with your pipeline weighted in, writes the scenario note and leaves one card. On Mondays the Invoice cross-check puts your invoice book beside the ledger — and stays completely quiet if there is nothing that does not line up, or if you do not keep an invoice book at all.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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