Cash Flow Statement

Cash Flow is an analytical tool that helps to visualise the positive and negative changes in liquidity as a result of management, with reference to a given period of time: it is in fact the reconstruction of monetary flows, then the difference between all the monetary income and expenditure of a company.

Cash Flow analysis is not subject to accounting rules and many investors use the data to assess the strength of the company.

Essentially, if the Cash Flow is positive, it shows the financial availability for the company within the reporting period, whereas if the cash flow is negative, it means that more resources have been absorbed than have been received.

Special Cash Flow transactions

The first step to obtain the Cash flow Statement i its to setup the account groups in the settings dialog, Most value needed for preparing the Cash Flow Statement can be calculated based on the changes of the standard account classification. Identifying Disinvestments, Revaluations, transactions and other specific movements effecting the cash flow, would require a restructuring of the account plan. We have therefore opted  to identify these values, by adding a special code to the description of a transaction.

It is important that these transactions are made using the recommended account type or group, because the program searches for cashflow amounts in certain groups, so if an entry is made using another account type, there could be an error as the amount may not be found.

If we talk about entering a fixed asset account, the account must belong to one of the groups entered in the fixed assets section of the dialogue. For example, if I disinvest by selling a vehicle and I use the standard chart of accounts for SMEs, I can use the account Vehicles '1530', which is part of the group 150, which in the dialogue is entered under the section 'Tangible Assets' in the fixed assets.

• Disinvestments (#disinvest)
  • A disinvestment simply represents the sale of a fixed asset such as a vehicle or machinery. When recording a disinvestment.
    • Debit Column: Insert the account where you will collect the money from the sale, such as the post or the bank.
    • Credit Column: Insert a fixed asset account that relates to the item sold.
  • Knowing the amount of disinvestments, the program is able to calculate in detail the real amount of investments that have been made during the year. For an SME, the number of disinvestments during the accounting period usually remains quite small, whereas investment activities are much more frequent operations, which is why it is very important to find the real amount net of all other movements.
• Revaluations of fixed assets (#revaluations)
  • Revaluation of a fixed asset is the accounting process of increasing  the carrying value of a company's fixed asset or group of fixed assets to account for any major changes in their fair market value.
    • Debit Column: Enter the account of the fixed asset item you are revaluing to increase its value.
    • Credit Colum: Enter an income account, if you don't have a particular one you can enter it as extraordinary income.
• Devaluations of fixed assets (#devaluations)
  • It works in the same way as a revaluation, but instead of increasing the value of the fixed asset it decreases it, which means that the accounting entry is also reversed, i.e. the income becomes a cost.
    • Debit Column: Enter a cost account, if you don't have a particular one you can enter it as extraordinary cost.
    • Credit Colum: Enter the account of the fixed asset item you are revaluing to increase its value.
• Dividends (#dividends)
  • Dividends are fees paid to shareholders and usually depend on the profit made. The payment of a dividend must be recorded in a specific liability account, and should appear under short-term liabilities.
    • Debit Column: Enter the reported balance sheet Profit / Loss carried forward account.
    • Credit Colum: Enter the specific account for dividends.

Cashflow Statement

Cash flow is divided into three main components:

• Operating cash flow which originates from the core business operations of a company.
• Cash flow for the company, which is the cash flow available to all investors in the company.
• Cash flow available to shareholders, which only considers the cash flows that are due to the shareholders, resulting from the net of all payments made and received, including from debt holders.

Adding up all the totals you find the amount that corresponds to the change in liquidity for the period, which in turn when added to the value of the liquidity at the opening of the period should give you the current liquidity balance.

If the results do not match, an error message is displayed.

Acronym column

In the acronym column of the cashflow, the reference to the account taken into account in the calculation is entered, or in the case of special entries, the prefix of the entry, so that it is easy to see which item of the balance sheet or income statement a certain movement relates to.

Cash Flow verification

This table shows any differences between the change in cash flow calculated in the cashflow and the actual cash flow in the accounts, which in an optimal situation should match. If there is a difference in one of the years of analysis the amount in question is printed in red on a line below.

Usually, when an error occurs, the first thing to do is to check whether the amounts in the balance sheet and profit and loss statement are correct or whether there are differences between the assets and liabilities, for checking them, control sums are very useful because they immediately show whether there is a difference.

if you realise there is some error but you dont know exactly where, you can check the amounts by comparing the ones in the report with those in the chart of accounts. 

The differences are generally due to an error when entering groups in the settings dialog, which can occur in two ways:

• One or more groups were not included
• One or more groups were entered under the wrong heading

In case the balance and profit and loss amounts are correct but the cashflow displays an error, is probably due to the fact that a group has been inserted in the wrong place.

Retained Earnings Statement

This table shows the movements made with the annual profit achieved. Starting from the reported annual profit it adds the profit for the period and adjusts the value by taking into account the payment of dividends and the creation or dissolution of reserves. The last two rows show the total undistributed profit, and the undistributed profit realised in the current year.

This information is somewhat supportive of Cash Flow but since earnings management does not directly affect cash, it is presented in a separate statement.

Record Transactions

It is useful to first record the transfer of the profit for the year from the profit and loss account to the profit shown in the balance sheet as shown in the example image.

In order to record the payment/discharge of reserves and the payment of dividends, it is sufficient to use the specific account of one of the above items and to decrease or increase the profit account shown in the balance sheet. The remaining amount (not allocated to reserves or dividends) then increases the retained earnings.

Cash Flow Ratios

In addition to the ratios already present, those ratios are added just below the Cashflow table and in the Charts

• Cashflow margin: Measures the amount of revenue a firm can convert into operating cash flow. When a firm is thriving, operating cash flow should grow alongside revenue. While profit margins measure a firm's pricing power; a declining cash flow margin also measures the health of customer and supplier relationships.
• Asset Efficiency Ratio: This is a basic ratio to show you how well the company uses its assets to generate cash flow. It’s best used to view the historical trend as well as to compare with competitors.
• Cashflow to current Liabilties: This ratio gives you an idea about the company’s debt management practices.It’s also a better indicator of the company’s ability to pay current liabilities than the current ratio or quick ratio
• Cashflow to Liabilities: Measures the amount of operating cash flow a firm generates on each dollar of total liabilities. Businesses that can't produce operating cash flow to pay off all their liabilities cannot continue to operate indefinitely, making this ratio an important indicator of liquidity as well as solvency
• Cashflow to Investments: Measures the amount a company outlays for capital assets for each dollar of cash dollar it generates from those investments.

Why Is Cash Flow Analysis Important?

Performing cash flow calculations in combination with constant monitoring of the company's cash flows is the winning formula for effective treasury management, and is useful for making the best use of available cash.

Thanks to the ability to generate cash flow and the financial solvency of the company, you gain confidence from banks and suppliers, as it symbolises a certain control over your business: the calculation of cash flow is in fact a way to detect the actual availability of the company, giving the possibility to face unexpected events or to plan consistently the future of projects.

For more information on Cashflow Analysis, please refer to the following page.