01
Cash trapped in stock
Slow-moving, ageing or over-ordered inventory can consume working capital even when margins look healthy.
Retail Working-Capital Intelligence
Know what you can afford.Know what to do next.
A working-capital decision engine built for retail.
LiquidGraph connects your existing accounting, banking, POS and inventory data to identify what is putting cash under pressure, calculate what is genuinely spendable, and generate ranked actions to help protect working capital.
Built to work alongside the systems retailers already use.
- Xero
- QuickBooks
- Sage
- Open Banking
- Shopify
- Square
- Lightspeed
- EPOS Now
Working-capital view
Visual conceptWorking Capital Overview
£80K
Cash Runway
4.2 Weeks
VAT Reserve
£12,450
Stock Health
72%
Supplier Terms
At Risk
Next Best Cash Action
Delay Stock Order
Potential Cash Impact +£3,450
About
Why LiquidGraph Exists
Retail businesses can look profitable on paper while running short of cash. Money becomes trapped in slow-moving stock, supplier bills arrive before inventory converts back into cash, and VAT or payroll obligations can make a healthy-looking bank balance misleading.
The Problem
02
Supplier timing pressure
Supplier invoices may become due before the inventory they funded has sold.
03
Bank balance does not equal spendable cash
Part of the visible balance may already be committed to VAT, payroll, rent or supplier obligations.
04
Existing tools explain too little
Accounting software records what happened. Cash-flow applications forecast a future balance. Inventory systems focus primarily on stock availability and sales.
05
Owners still need the next decision
“Can I afford this decision, and what should I do next to protect cash?”
The LiquidGraph Approach
From reporting to decision-making
LiquidGraph combines operational and financial data into a connected working-capital model.
It analyses
- Stock
- Supplier terms
- VAT reserves
- Payroll
- Rent
- Margin
- Sales velocity
- Cash runway
It is designed to identify
- The cause of cash pressure
- What cash is genuinely spendable
- The financial consequences of a decision
- The next action with the strongest working-capital impact
Shahana Abdul Jaleel
Founder & Domain Architect
Shahana is the source of LiquidGraph's financial decision logic.
Background
- MSc Accounting & Finance, Anglia Ruskin University
- ACCA-level study
- UK taxation
- Management accounting
- Financial management
- VAT preparation and HMRC submission
- Payroll
- Supplier and customer ledgers
- Bank and cash reconciliation
- Accruals and prepayments
- Management accounts
- Experience across Sage, QuickBooks and Xero
She defines and validates the financial logic behind LiquidGraph, including:
- VAT reserve thresholds
- Cash-trapped-in-stock scoring
- Payroll ring-fencing
- Supplier-term effects
- Trade-offs between cash, margin and risk
Mohammed Naseef
Founding Engineer / Full-Stack Engineer
The LiquidGraph Platform
Six connected engines. One working-capital decision layer.
LiquidGraph analyses the relationships between stock, suppliers, tax obligations, operating costs and cash, then turns that information into explainable, ranked actions.
Engine 01
Working Capital Decision Graph
The Working Capital Decision Graph is the central LiquidGraph engine. Unlike a conventional cash-flow forecast that mainly shows inflows minus outflows, the Decision Graph is designed to trace liquidity pressure back to the operational decision causing it.
It links
- Stock
- Supplier terms
- VAT reserves
- Payroll
- Rent
- Margin
- Sales velocity
- Cash runway
Example insight
Cash falls because Supplier A's invoice becomes due before Category C stock is expected to sell through.
Engine 02
Cash Trapped in Stock Index
A product-level liquidity assessment designed to identify how much working capital is tied up in slow-moving, over-ordered, ageing or seasonal inventory.
Factors analysed
- Stock ageing
- Turnover
- Sales velocity
- Reorder frequency
- Holding period
- Margin
Inventory viewed through a cash lens, not only a sales lens.
Illustrative UI
Example onlyProduct X
- Margin
- 45%
- Sell-through
- 120 days
High Trapped-Cash Risk
Product Y
- Margin
- 22%
- Turnover
- Weekly
High Cash Recycling
Engine 03
VAT-Protected Spendable Cash Engine
Separates the visible bank balance from cash that is already financially committed.
Reserve categories can include
- VAT
- Payroll
- Rent
- Supplier payments
- Emergency reserves
Illustrative visual
Example only- Bank Balance
- £9,000
- VAT Reserve
- £4,100
- Payroll Reserve
- £2,300
- Estimated Spendable Cash
- £2,600
See what can genuinely be spent before committing to a purchase.
Engine 04
Supplier-Term Stress Simulator
Designed to model the working-capital consequences of supplier decisions before the retailer commits.
Scenarios can include
- Supplier price changes
- Bulk-order offers
- Minimum order quantity changes
- Payment-term changes
- Delayed payments
- Supplier switching
Impact categories
- Cash runway
- Margin
- Stock availability
- VAT safety
- Payroll risk
6% Bulk Discount
Example only- Unit Cost
- Down
- Stock Cover
- 24 days → 71 days
- VAT Safety
- At Risk
- Payroll Risk
- Increased
A lower unit cost is not always a better cash decision.
Engine 05
Next-Best Cash Action Engine
Generates a ranked weekly action list instead of leaving the owner to interpret charts alone.
Example actions
- Delay a reorder
- Reduce order quantity
- Liquidate dead stock
- Protect VAT reserve
- Chase a supplier credit note
- Move a promotion
- Hold cash for payroll week
#1 Delay Category B reorder by 14 days
Illustrative UI- Cash Impact
- +£1,100
- Confidence
- High
- Stockout Risk
- Low
Reason: Current stock covers approximately 31 days of projected sales, while reordering now could weaken the VAT reserve before the next return.
Engine 06
Retail Working-Capital Benchmark Engine
An anonymised benchmark layer designed to compare operational working-capital behaviour across similar retailers.
Benchmark areas
- Stock cover
- Inventory turnover
- Supplier-payment structures
- VAT-reserve adequacy
- Cash runway
- Purchasing behaviour
Illustrative example
Example only- Your Stock Cover
- 64 days
- Comparable Retailers
- 38 days
- Potential Excess Trapped Capital
- ~£11,000
As the platform grows, the benchmark dataset is intended to strengthen comparisons and recommendations.
Platform architecture
Layer 1
Integration Layer
Accounting + Banking + POS + Inventory
Layer 2
Data Layer
Unified retail financial model
Layer 3
Intelligence Layer
Decision Graph + Optimisation + Forecasting + Reserve Logic
Layer 4
Application Layer
Recommendation service and business logic
Layer 5
Presentation Layer
Clear retailer-facing insights and actions
Technical environment (informational)
- PostgreSQL
- Neo4j / Amazon Neptune
- Redis
- Python
- FastAPI / Node.js
- React
- TypeScript
- Recharts / D3.js
- AWS UK
Designed with financial-data security in mind
UK Data Residency
Planned AWS London / eu-west-2 hosting
Encryption
AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit
Open Banking
Read-only data access planned through a regulated AISP provider
Privacy
UK GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018 alignment
MTD
VAT logic designed to work within the UK's digital-record environment
SOC 2
SOC 2 readiness is planned as the platform scales
Process
How LiquidGraph Works
Connect once. Understand your working-capital position continuously. Take clearer actions each week.
Step 01 — Connect
Connect your existing systems
Link accounting, banking, POS, e-commerce and inventory data sources.
- Xero
- QuickBooks
- Sage
- Open Banking
- Square
- Shopify
- Lightspeed
- EPOS Now
Structured CSV import is intended as a fallback where an API is unavailable.
Step 02 — Unify
Create one financial operating picture
LiquidGraph normalises different data sources into one connected retail financial model.
Step 03 — Map
Build the Working Capital Decision Graph
The platform links stock, supplier terms, VAT, payroll, rent, margins, sales velocity and cash runway into a cause-and-effect model.
Step 04 — Analyse
Forecast pressure and test trade-offs
LiquidGraph evaluates future cash position, inventory sell-through, reserve safety and the impact of alternative decisions.
Step 05 — Prioritise
Generate next-best cash actions
Actions are ranked using factors such as:
- Cash impact
- Margin impact
- Urgency
- Stockout risk
- Supplier risk
- Confidence level
Step 06 — Act & Improve
Make clearer decisions over time
Retailers receive explainable recommendations and can compare working-capital performance with relevant benchmarks as the platform dataset develops.
Market
Built for a Large UK Retail Market
LiquidGraph is initially focused on independent retailers and small retail chains that face meaningful stock, supplier, tax and cash-flow complexity but cannot justify a full-time finance director.
304,560
UK retail businesses
£517bn
Great Britain retail sales in 2024
£114.7bn
Retail-sector economic output in 2024
2.6 million
Retail-sector jobs
~120,000
Estimated digitally-ready serviceable retailers
Business-plan estimate
~£72m/year
Estimated serviceable market opportunity
Business-plan estimate
Who LiquidGraph is built for
Independent Retailers
Pain: The visible bank balance can hide VAT, payroll and supplier commitments.
LiquidGraph value: Understand spendable cash and receive actionable working-capital recommendations.
Small Retail Chains
Pain: Capital can become trapped across multiple sites and SKUs.
LiquidGraph value: Identify liquidity pressure across products and operations.
Accountants & Bookkeepers
Pain: Traditional reporting is historical and advisory work can be manual and time-consuming.
LiquidGraph value: A productised working-capital decision-support layer across retail client portfolios.
Lenders / Finance Providers
Future ChannelPotential value: Behaviour-based working-capital indicators may support future B2B data partnerships.
Market positioning
| Tool Category | What It Does | Where LiquidGraph Adds Value |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting SoftwareXero, QuickBooks, Sage | Records the past, ledgers, VAT and invoices. | Adds forward-looking working-capital decision logic. |
| Cash-Flow ForecastingFloat, Agicap | Forecasts bank balances. | Explains operational causes and recommends actions. |
| Inventory ManagementUnleashed, Cin7, Katana | Optimises inventory around sales and availability. | Evaluates stock from a working-capital and liquidity perspective. |
| Reporting / AnalyticsSyft, Fathom | Shows reports and KPIs. | Turns analysis into ranked actions. |
LiquidGraph is designed to sit between accounting, forecasting and inventory systems as the working-capital decision layer.
Simple SaaS Pricing
Choose the plan that matches your retail operation
The business plan uses the following launch-stage monthly point prices, with pricing intended to be tested and refined during product validation.
CORE
£35/month
Single independent retailer
- Working-capital visibility
- Spendable-cash insights
- Stock-liquidity analysis
- Ranked cash actions
- Scenario-based decision support
- Web-based access
PRO
Recommended£85/month
Multi-site / higher SKU volume
- Designed for more complex retail operations
- Higher stock and SKU complexity
- Multi-site working-capital visibility
- Advanced scenario analysis
- Ranked recommendations
- Working-capital benchmarking as available
ACCOUNTANT / PARTNER
£119/month per account
Bookkeepers managing multiple retail clients
- Designed for accountants and bookkeepers
- Multi-client use case
- Productised working-capital advisory
- Client-level insights
- Partner-led onboarding model
- Scalable retail portfolio support
A free-trial or freemium entry model is planned to support early product activation.
Finance-director-level working-capital decisions — without the cost of a full-time finance director.
See How LiquidGraph WorksFAQ