The Analytics template alone gets you to an ungeared profit and ungeared margin on cost. The Cash Flow app fills in the rest of a full development feasibility:

Phasing — cash flowing costs and revenue across different project stages
Escalation — different cost/revenue escalation rates by phase
IRR and equity returns — cash flowing revenue and cost to calculate a return
Debt and financing — gearing assumptions, facility sizing, and repayments

How to use the Cash Flow app in Giraffe

The Cash Flow app works off your existing Analytics template, so make sure that's set up first.

Set up phasing using Layers

Before configuring cash flow, make sure your project is split into phases at the layer level, and that Analytics is grouped by layer.

Each layer becomes a separate phase/column that you can apply different cash flow and escalation assumptions to.

Adding the app

Add it from the App Store (availability depends on your subscription tier — check with your account manager if you're not sure).

The Cash Flow view

Opening the app shows:

A chart at the top (toggle on/off)
A table at the bottom, structured like your Analytics table, since it pulls directly from it

Step 1: Check the profiles attached to each line

Click Edit assumptions to reveal an extra column showing the profile attached to every Analytics line (e.g. land acquisition, design and planning, start on site, construction, PC, settlement).

Go through each line and confirm the right profile is attached.
Change a line's profile if needed — e.g. if land value should be paid on "start on site" instead of "land acquisition."
You can create as many profiles as you need.

Step 2: Review the cash flow chart

Click into a phase tab to see its cash flow — costs and revenue laid out against time.

Toggle escalation on/off to compare unescalated vs. escalated figures.
Hover over any figure to see its formula and the escalation rate applied, the same way you would in Analytics.

Step 3: Configure global settings

Open Settings to set:

Total cash flow measure — must point to your profit line. Templates should pick this up automatically; if the cash flow looks wrong, check the right tab and line are selected.
⚠️ Giraffe works backward from this line through your formulas, and only picks up calculations on the same tab. Keep your full P&L on one tab.
Group by — same setting as Analytics (e.g. by layer/phase).
Cash flow start month — defaults to the current month; change it to set your project's actual start date. This sets the starting point for every profile below.

Step 4: Set duration, dates, and escalation profiles

For each profile (land acquisition, design and planning, construction, etc.), set:

Start month and duration
S-curve or straight-line cash flow shape
Escalation profile to apply

To build an escalation profile:

Go to the escalation profiles section (bottom of settings)
Add a profile (e.g. "Construction Cost" or "CPI")
Enter rates per period — type a rate, then use the arrow to fill the rest of the profile with that value
Set when escalation starts — by default it starts from the cash flow start month, but you can delay it (e.g. don't escalate until next year)
Set the date to escalate to — defaults to the midpoint, but you may want revenue to escalate to an earlier date if you're locking in pricing via pre-sales before construction starts

As you adjust start months, durations shift automatically — if design and planning runs longer, push out the start date of the next dependent profile (e.g. start on site) to match.

Step 5: Customize assumptions per phase

By default, all phases share the same cash flow and escalation assumptions (set under "All"). To differentiate:

Go to the specific phase tab
Adjust its dates/escalation as needed — e.g. delay phase two by changing its start cell and using the push down button to shift every subsequent date by the same amount
Fine-tune individual profiles further once the bulk shift is applied

Close the settings panel to update the chart — you'll see each phase's cash flow shift independently, and can toggle escalation on/off to compare.

Step 6: Set up debt and financing

Once your ungeared cash flow, profit, margin on cost, and IRR are in place, add gearing:

Go to the financing section and click Edit assumptions
Choose a drawdown structure:
- Pari passu — debt drawn down in parallel with equity
- Equity in first — equity funds the project first, debt funds the remainder
Choose when debt draws down (e.g. project start vs. start on site)
Enter your assumptions:
- % of cost funded by debt
- Establishment fee
- Commitment fee (charged on total facility size)

Giraffe automatically calculates the facility size needed to support your drawdown, then derives the commitment fee, interest, and repayments.

⚠️ Only one debt facility per phase is supported — you can't model multiple facilities within the same phase.

This produces your geared profit, geared margin on cost, geared IRR, equity drawdown, and return on equity for each phase.

Save it as a template

Once configured, save your Cash Flow setup alongside your Analytics template — future projects can reuse both without re-entering assumptions from scratch.

Exporting to Excel

Click Download to export the full model, including debt formulas, as an Excel file.

The export includes:

A summary tab linking to each phase
Full revenue, cost, and debt formulas per phase
Your Areas, Metrics, and Inputs tabs

Common workflow: if you want to keep using an existing Excel model (e.g. for joint venture modeling), copy the exported tab into your model and reference it using VLOOKUPs. Re-download and re-paste any time you update assumptions in Giraffe.