Cash Flow Statement: What It Is and Examples

While you can get a sense of a company’s ability to pay its bills using a quick ratio, the cash flow statement provides a more nuanced look at an organization’s cash position. The cash flow statement can also surface potential issues, such as overspending or low profit margins. In addition to providing useful insights that you can use to shape strategy, your company may also need a cash flow statement to show others evaluating the business. Potential lenders, investors, partners, and acquirers typically all use company cash flow statements when conducting due diligence on a company. Cash flow statements can also give you insight into actions to improve a company’s cash flow or liquidity.

An organisation can also use a cash flow statement prepared for the future, for the preparation of its cash budget. Thus, it helps in planning the investment of surplus cash in different short-term investments and also helps in planning short-term credit in advance for deficit periods. As we have discussed, the operating section of the statement of cash flows can be shown using either the direct method or the indirect method. With either method, the investing and financing sections are identical; the only difference is in the operating section.

These items include depreciation, amortization, deferred taxes, and other non-cash items. It uses the accrual method of accounting which records sales when earned and not necessarily when the cash is received. The operating section of the cash flow statement shows the cash inflows and outflows from the company’s day-to-day operations. It includes how to calculate gross profit margin with example items such as revenue from sales, expenses such as rent and payroll, and other operating income and expenses. The purpose of the statement of cash flows is to present cash inflows and outflows for a reporting period to the reader of the report. These inflows and outflows are further classified into operating, investing, and financing activities.

What is the Statement of Cash Flows?

Using the direct method, actual cash inflows and outflows are known amounts. The cash flow statement is reported in a straightforward manner, using cash payments and receipts. Assume you keep track of your individual cash transactions for an entire year in a check register (e.g., checks written and paycheck deposits) and suppose you have hundreds of transactions for the year.

The most common and consistent of these are depreciation, the reduction in the value of an asset over time, and amortization, the spreading of payments over multiple periods. A company might look profitable, but if it can’t generate enough cash from its business activities, then it’s in trouble. The balance sheet tells us how much money a company has, but the cash flow statement tells us how much it’s actually getting from its operations. Window Dressing means showing a false and better picture of an organisation by manipulating its statements. Therefore, a fund flow statement presents a more realistic picture of a firm than a cash flow statement.

• By making a comparison between the cash budget and cash flow statement, an organisation can ascertain the extent to which its financial resources have been generated and used according to the plan made in cash budget.
• Businesses use cash flow statements to get a detailed picture of their cash position, which is essential to a company’s financial health.
• The statement depicting the profitability of the business entity by reporting all the sacrifices made by the business and the benefits generated from the business operations is known as an income statement.
• Changes made in cash, accounts receivable, depreciation, inventory, and accounts payable are generally reflected in cash from operations.
• Negative cash flow is common for small businesses, but it is unhealthy if it goes on for a long period.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in India has issued Accounting Standard AS – 3 revised for the preparation of cash flow statements. Besides, with the introduction of the Companies Act 2013, the preparation of a Cash Flow Statement is now mandatory for every type of company except OPC (One Person Company) [Section 2(40)]. A cash flow statement in a financial model in Excel displays both historical and projected data. Before this model can be created, we first need to have the income statement and balance sheet built in Excel, since that data will ultimately drive the cash flow statement calculations.

As a cash flow statement is prepared on a cash basis, it ignores one of the basic concepts of accounting; i.e., the accrual concept. Accrual Basis of Accounting is a system where the transactions are recorded whenever they occur, no matter if actual cash is received or not in the case of income or actual cash is paid or not in the case of payment. Working capital represents the difference between a company’s current assets and current liabilities.

How to Read & Understand a Cash Flow Statement

Cash flow might also impact internal decisions, such as budgeting, or the decision to hire (or fire) employees. The purpose of a cash flow statement is to provide a detailed picture of what happened to a business’s cash during a specified period, known as the accounting period. It demonstrates an organization’s ability to operate in the short and long term, based on how much cash is flowing into and out of the business. They show us how well a business uses it’s cash and how healthy its operations are. A good cash flow analysis will tell you if a company can pay its bills on time and if it has enough cash to sustain operations in the future.

It is also useful to help determine how a company raises cash for operational growth. The cash flow statement is one of the required external financial statements. The information revealed by a cash flow statement is historical in nature, as, it is prepared with the help of two comparative balance sheets of the past years.

The purpose of the statement of cash flows

The operating activities in the cash flow statement include core business activities. In other words, this section measures the cash flow from a company’s provision of products or services. Examples of operating cash flows include sales of goods and services, salary payments, rent payments, and income tax payments. The statement of cash flows reports on a company’s inflows and outflows of cash over a given period of time, while the balance sheet reports on a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity as of a given point in time. The indirect method of preparing a cash flow statement involves starting with the net income for the period and then adjusting it for non-cash items that affected net income.

The money that the company is earning from sales may not be enough to cover its expenses, and it may have to borrow from external sources to cover the differences. Changes made in cash, accounts receivable, depreciation, inventory, and accounts payable are generally reflected in cash from operations. Companies are able to generate sufficient positive cash flow for operational growth.

However, the indirect method also provides a means of reconciling items on the balance sheet to the net income on the income statement. As an accountant prepares the CFS using the indirect method, they can identify increases and decreases in the balance sheet that are the result of non-cash transactions. As for the balance sheet, the net cash flow reported on the CFS should equal the net change in the various line items reported on the balance sheet. This excludes cash and cash equivalents and non-cash accounts, such as accumulated depreciation and accumulated amortization.

Statement of Cash Flows vs Income Statement

Low or negative cash flow could be a sign that the company needs to make changes—whether that’s decreasing costs or increasing prices—to improve the company’s profit margins and lower cash outflows relative to inflows. Having a clear understanding of how to create, read, and use a cash flow statement can make it easier to manage your company’s cash flow. It is useful to see the impact and relationship that accounts on the balance sheet have to the net income on the income statement, and it can provide a better understanding of the financial statements as a whole.

A revenue transaction may be recorded in a different accounting period than the accounting period the cash related to that revenue is received. One purpose of the statement of cash flows is that users of the financial statements can see the amount of cash inflows and outflows during a year in addition to the amount of revenue and expense shown on the income statement. This is important because cash flows often differ significantly from accrual basis net income. For example, in 2021 Uber showed a loss of approximately $485 million, yet Uber’s cash balance increased by $65 million. Much of the change can be explained by timing differences between income statement accounts and cash receipts and distributions. Essentially, the cash flow statement is concerned with the flow of cash in and out of the business.

Cash Flow Statement: Objectives, Importance and Limitations

A cash flow statement is a valuable measure of strength, profitability, and the long-term future outlook of a company. The CFS can help determine whether a company has enough liquidity or cash to pay its expenses. A company can use a CFS to predict future cash flow, which helps with budgeting matters.

The statement of cash flows shows the operating, investing, and financing activities of a company. It shows how much cash a company has generated or used over a certain period of time arising from these activities. The main purpose of a cash flow statement is to help manage the company’s financial affairs and make decisions about investing, financing, and other activities. The statement of cash flows provides cash receipt and cash payment information and reconciles the change in cash for a period of time.

If you’re a manager, it can help you more effectively manage budgets, oversee your team, and develop closer relationships with leadership—ultimately allowing you to play a larger role within your organization. Harvard Business School Online’s Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

Whether you are raising a loan, paying interest to service debt, or distributing dividends, all of these transactions fall under the financing activities section in the cash flow statement. A cash flow statement is a financial statement that summarizes the inflows and outflows of cash transactions during a given period of business operations. Another difference is that the statement of cash flows includes information on investments and financing activities, while the income statement does not. Next, we need to adjust EBIT for changes in other working capital items on the balance sheet. Adjusting for these changes tells us how much cash was generated (or used) by a company’s operations during the period.