AlphaWave Builds a Cash Flow Forecast Finance Actually Trusts with Swiper

THE COMPANY

A retail portfolio with cash flow that moves fast

AlphaWave operates a portfolio of specialty retail brands with stores and wholesale accounts nationwide, each with its own seasonality and payment patterns feeding into one consolidated forecast.

THE CHALLENGE

A forecast nobody fully trusted

The finance team’s spreadsheet forecast assumed every wholesale account paid on time and every month behaved like the last one. When actuals diverged, which was often, rebuilding the model took most of a month, by which point it was already out of date again.

We had a forecast. We just didn’t really believe it, and neither did anyone we presented it to.
Owen Mercer, Finance Ops Lead

THE SOLUTION

Forecasting from actual payment behavior

Swiper builds cash flow projections directly from AlphaWave’s invoicing and payment history: which accounts pay early, which consistently run late, and how collections trend by segment and season. The forecast updates continuously instead of being rebuilt from scratch each cycle.

Projections are shown as a confidence range with the underlying drivers visible, so finance can explain a shift in projected cash position rather than just report it.

THE RESULTS

A forecast leadership actually plans around

AlphaWave’s forecast cycle dropped from roughly four weeks to one, and projections now hold within 98% accuracy over a 30-day horizon.