A purchase order payable in nine months does not change your runway — the money has not moved. It should still change your decision. Waterline shows both, and does not confuse them.
Runway is when your cash runs out. It keeps meaning exactly that, because every alert, chart and comparison in the product depends on it.
Covered runway is how long the cash lasts if you also honour everything you have signed. The gap between the two is the period in which the model says you are fine and your signatures say otherwise.
| Answers | |
|---|---|
| Runway | When do I run out? |
| Covered runway | Can I sign this? |
Cash, and cash less what is promised
Solid: cash. Dashed: cash less everything signed. Ten weeks separate the two crossings.
Your project plan already says $110k of tooling in October. When you sign for it, mark it signed. Nothing moves — the spend was always there. It simply starts counting as an obligation.
Your outstanding bills become drafts you confirm. Invoiced obligations only — anything signed and not yet billed will not appear, and the product says so every time.
The match you owe on every grant appears without being entered, and moves when the budget moves. There is no second record to keep in step.
The sentence the software could not say before, and now says while you are still typing the amount:
Signing this does not change your runway, and commits you to $188,000 you do not have.
Both halves are true. The first is why a cash model stays quiet. The second is why this exists.