NEMT Cash Flow Forecast Template: A 13-Week Sheet Built Around Payer Pay Days

Your books count a ride on the day you drive it. Your bank counts it weeks later, on the day the payer’s money lands. This sheet plans the gap between those two dates for the next 13 weeks, one row per week, so you know which Friday will be tight before it comes. For the reasons the gap exists and how to shrink it, read NEMT cash flow. This page is the worksheet.

How to use this template

1. Fill in Part 1 from your contracts. For each payer, write its billing cutoff, its pay day or cycle, and the longest wait its terms allow from claim to deposit. How long Medicaid takes to pay lists many state calendars and broker terms.
2. Fill in Part 2 from your bills. List every payment with a fixed date: paydays, tax deposits, insurance, van loans, the fuel card, rent. Write which weeks each one lands in.
3. Date the weeks. Week 1 starts next Monday. Write the Monday date for all 13 weeks in Part 3.
4. Enter cash in (Part 3). Put each payer’s expected deposit in the week it will reach your bank, not the week of the ride. Subtract any offset, recoupment, or held claim you know about.
5. Enter cash out (Part 4). Copy each bill from Part 2 into its week. Put payroll and payroll taxes on the sheet before anything else.
6. Work out the balance (Part 5). Week 1 opens with the cleared balance in your bank account today. Each week’s ending cash becomes the next week’s opening cash.
7. Set a floor and watch it. Write your floor at the top of Part 5, such as two weeks of cash out. Any week that ends below it needs an action now, written in the last column.
8. Review every Friday (Part 6). Replace estimates with what actually posted, then add a week at the end so the sheet always looks 13 weeks ahead.

Use real numbers only: your contracts, your remittances, your bills. The break-even calculator shows how many trips cover your fixed costs, and the cash reserve calculator sizes the cushion this sheet should never dip below.

The template

Part 1: How each payer pays

Payer	Billing cutoff (day and time)	Pay day or cycle	Longest wait, claim to deposit	Paid by (EFT or check)	Filing limit from date of service	Who to call about a payment

Part 2: Bills with fixed dates

Bill	Amount	Due (date or day of month)	Weeks it lands in (1 to 13)	Paid automatically?
Payroll, each payday
Federal payroll tax deposit
State payroll and unemployment taxes
Form 941 balance due, if paid with the return
Federal unemployment (FUTA) deposit
Van loan or lease payments
Auto liability insurance
General and professional liability insurance
Workers’ compensation
Fuel card
Rent, parking, and utilities
Phones, dispatch, and billing services
Line of credit or other loan payments
Estimated income tax
Licenses, permits, inspections, and renewals
Other

Part 3: Cash in, by week

Week	Monday date	Payer 1	Payer 2	Payer 3	Facility and private pay	Other cash in	Less offsets and holds	Total cash in
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Part 4: Cash out, by week

Week	Payroll	Payroll taxes	Fuel	Insurance	Van and loan payments	Everything else	Total cash out
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Part 5: Bank balance, by week

Your floor: $__________ (for example, two weeks of cash out)

Week	Opening cash	Plus total cash in	Minus total cash out	Ending cash	Below the floor?	Action and who takes it
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Lowest ending cash ahead: $__________ in week ____

Part 6: Friday review

Check	Done (date and initials)
This week’s estimates replaced with the deposits that posted and the bills that were paid
Each deposit matched to its remittance
Any payment that did not arrive moved to a later week, with the reason found
Denials and short pays sent for follow-up this week
New notices of holds, audits, offsets, or recoupments added to Part 3
Bank holidays and payer cutoffs in the next four weeks checked
Week 14 added at the end, so the sheet looks 13 weeks ahead
Lowest ending cash ahead found and compared with the floor

The NEMT payment log is where each deposit gets tied to its remittance and each remittance line to a trip.

When each payer’s money actually arrives

The dates in Part 3 come from the payment clause in each contract or the payer’s published calendar. As of September 2026, these published terms show how much they differ:

Payer	Published payment terms	How to enter it in Part 3
MTM Health, standard agreement (January 1, 2023 version posted by Pennsylvania)	Pays properly submitted uncontested invoices within 30 days after online submission. Claims filed more than 90 days after the date of service, or past another limit set by MTM’s client, are not paid (6.A).	Count 30 days from the day you submit, and use that week
WellTrans, Indiana (revised October 16, 2025)	Pays twice a month by check or electronic transfer, within 30 days after submission. A pay date on a holiday moves to the next working weekday. Invoices with trip logs are due within 60 days of the date of service and are refused after 90.	Enter the twice-monthly pay dates, and count 30 days from each submission for the latest one
MTM Health, Wisconsin	Pays weekly by direct deposit	One entry every week
Verida, Indiana fee-for-service (module published August 19, 2025)	Clean claims submitted by Wednesday of each week are paid within 14 days	Claims in by Wednesday land about two weeks later
New York Medicaid, eMedNY (calendar edition of April 2025)	Weekly cycles run Thursday to Wednesday. The check date is the following Monday, and the electronic transfer starts on the Wednesday 2 weeks and 2 days after the check date.	The transfer starts 21 days after the cycle closes
Minnesota Health Care Programs (2026 calendar)	Claim cut-off every other Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Electronic payments go out the Tuesday after each cut-off, and remittances follow that Friday.	Claims in by a cut-off land the Tuesday after it. Check holiday weeks on the calendar.

Federal rules set only an outer limit. Under 42 CFR 447.45, a state Medicaid agency must pay 90 percent of clean claims from practitioners in individual or group practice within 30 days of receipt and 99 percent within 90 days. It must pay every other claim within 12 months of receipt, with a few exceptions. Medicaid health plan contracts must meet the same 30-day and 90-day standards, unless the plan and its providers agree on another schedule in the contract (42 CFR 447.46). For your forecast, the contract and the payer’s calendar are what count.

Three rules keep Part 3 honest:

• Use the latest allowed date. “Within 30 days” can mean day 30. Move a payment earlier only after several months of deposits show the payer’s real pattern.
• Bank holidays shift deposits. The Federal Reserve Banks close on October 12, November 11, November 26, and December 25, 2026, and on January 1, January 18, and February 15, 2027. ACH direct deposits do not settle on those days.
• Only clean claims count. MTM pays nothing for trips by drivers, attendants, or vehicles it has not credentialed (6.B), and WellTrans pays nothing for drivers or vehicles it has not approved. Leave those trips out of cash in until the problem is fixed.

Dates that do not wait for a payer

Part 4 starts with payroll and taxes because their dates are fixed by law.

Paydays. Your state sets how often you must pay. The U.S. Department of Labor’s table of state payday rules, dated January 1, 2023, lists weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly rules by state, and shows no rule for Alabama and Florida. Overtime earned in a workweek is generally due on the regular payday for the period in which that workweek ends (29 CFR 778.106). See NEMT driver pay.

Federal employment taxes. These come from IRS Publication 15 (2026):

What	When it is due	Notes
Deposits, monthly schedule	By the 15th of the next month	A new employer filing Form 941 is on the monthly schedule for its first calendar year. The schedule applies when lookback period taxes were $50,000 or less.
Deposits, semiweekly schedule	Wednesday to Friday paydays by the next Wednesday. Saturday to Tuesday paydays by the next Friday.	Applies when lookback period taxes were more than $50,000
Any deposit of $100,000 or more	The next business day	Applies on either schedule
Form 941	April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31	If the quarter’s or the prior quarter’s total tax is under $2,500, it may be paid with the return. October 31, 2026 is a Saturday, so the third quarter return is due Monday, November 2.
FUTA deposits	The last day of the month after each quarter	Only when the amount owed is over $500. Otherwise it carries forward.
Any due date on a weekend or legal holiday	The next business day

Late deposits cost money. The penalty is 2 percent for deposits 1 to 5 days late, 5 percent for 6 to 15 days, and 10 percent for 16 days or more. It rises to 15 percent for amounts still unpaid more than 10 days after the first IRS notice. Withheld income tax and the employee share of Social Security and Medicare are trust fund taxes. If they go unpaid and the business cannot pay them, the IRS can charge a penalty of 100 percent of the unpaid amount to each responsible person who acted willfully.

Estimated income tax. Sole proprietors, partners, and S corporation shareholders generally pay estimated tax if they expect to owe $1,000 or more with their return. Corporations generally do if they expect to owe $500 or more. The fourth 2026 payment for individuals is due January 15, 2027, unless the 2026 return is filed by February 1, 2027 with the full balance paid (Form 1040-ES, 2026). See NEMT business taxes.

Offsets, holds, and other ways a forecast goes wrong

Money you have earned can still shrink or stall before it reaches you. Put each of these in the “Less offsets and holds” column of Part 3 as soon as you know about it:

What happens	Where the rule comes from	What to enter
A broker takes back an overpayment from later payments	MTM may recover overpayments by offsets against future payments (6.D). WellTrans may offset duplicate payments and overpayments.	The amount, in the week of the next payment
A trip is charged back because the rider did not attend the appointment	WellTrans checks attendance. A provider that does not answer its written request within 30 days is treated as confirming the trip did not happen, and WellTrans deducts its cost.	The trip’s value, in the week of the next payment
The broker’s own client pays late	WellTrans may delay your payments until its client pays the amounts owed	Move the expected payment out until you have a date
You or the broker give notice to end the contract	MTM holds all unpaid claims at the time of notice until it audits them, and may offset liquidated damages (14.E)	Remove those claims from Part 3 until MTM releases them
The state suspends Medicaid payments	A state must suspend payments after it finds a credible allegation of fraud unless it has good cause not to, may do so without notice first, and must send notice within 5 days unless law enforcement asks it to wait (42 CFR 455.23). See payment suspension.	Zero for that payer until the suspension ends

Selling claims does not fix the sheet when the state pays you. Federal rules bar Medicaid payment for any service to or through a factor (42 CFR 447.10). See NEMT factoring for what that means for broker invoices.

Acting on what the sheet shows

The SBA’s guide to managing finances says someone in the business should manage accounts receivable, accounts payable, available cash, bank reconciliation, and payroll. This sheet puts all five on one page. When a week ahead drops below your floor, work in this order:

1. Collect what is owed. Check the status of every claim past its expected pay date. See how to check Medicaid claim status and the accounts receivable guide.
2. Call a late payer with claim numbers. Quote the payment clause from Part 1. See when a NEMT broker pays late.
3. Protect payroll and tax deposits. Pay them before any other bill.
4. Ask before a bill is late. An insurer, lender, or landlord asked early may move a due date.
5. Draw on credit only for the weeks the sheet shows, and enter the repayment in the weeks the deposits land. See NEMT business loans.
6. Hold off on new vans or contracts until the sheet can carry their first weeks of costs.

If one payer fills most of Part 3, a single late payment empties the week. NEMT payer mix shows how to spread that risk.