What is "cash flow"

n. 1 (context accounting English) The sum of cash revenues and expenditures over a period of time. 2 (context accounting English) A statement of such transactions.

n. the excess of cash revenues over cash outlays in a give period of time (not including non-cash expenses)

A cash flow describes a real or virtual movement of money:

• a cash flow in its narrow sense is a payment (in a currency), especially from one central bank account to another; the term 'cash flow' is mostly used to describe payments that are expected to happen in the future, are thus uncertain and therefore need to be forecasted with cash flows;
• a cash flow is determined by its time t, nominal amount N, currency CCY and account A; symbolically CF=CF(t,N,CCY,A).
• it is however popular to use cash flows in a less specified sense describing (symbolic) payments into or out of a business, project, or financial product.

Cash flows are narrowly interconnected with the concepts of value, interest rate and liquidity. A cash flow that shall happen on a future day tN can be transformed into a cashflow of the same value in t0.

Cash flow analysis

Cash flows are often transformed into measures that give information e.g. on a company's value and situation:

• to determine a project's rate of return or value. The time of cash flows into and out of projects are used as inputs in financial models such as internal rate of return and net present value.
• to determine problems with a business's liquidity. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid. A company can fail because of a shortage of cash even while profitable.
• as an alternative measure of a business's profits when it is believed that accrual accounting concepts do not represent economic realities. For instance, a company may be notionally profitable but generating little operational cash (as may be the case for a company that barters its products rather than selling for cash). In such a case, the company may be deriving additional operating cash by issuing shares or raising additional debt finance.
• cash flow can be used to evaluate the 'quality' of income generated by accrual accounting. When net income is composed of large non-cash items it is considered low quality.
• to evaluate the risks within a financial product, e.g., matching cash requirements, evaluating default risk, re-investment requirements, etc.

Cash flow notion is based loosely on cash flow statement accounting standards. the term is flexible and can refer to time intervals spanning over past-future. It can refer to the total of all flows involved or a subset of those flows. Subset terms include net cash flow, operating cash flow and free cash flow.

Symptoms of cash flow problems. There are many reasons a business can suffer cash flow problems – some are down to mismanagement and poor decisions, and in some cases factors outside of your control. Any of the following symptoms can indicate that a business is experiencing cash flow problems:

• Up to overdraft limit – no headroom / returned payments
• Stretch to pay salaries each month
• Trade creditor arrears
• Taxation arrears
• Rent arrears
• No working capital ‘buffer’ – surviving day to day
• Negative working capital on balance sheet – over geared / losses?
• Lack of funds for remedial action (redundancies / premises relocation)
• Lack of profitability – insufficient to support owner / manager’s lifestyle
• Unable to pay for professional advice

Cash flow problems can be avoided through good credit management; the Chartered Institute of Credit Management has produced a series of Managing Cash flow Guides which are available on its website (see references) which have been dowloaded more than 500,000 times at December 2015

Cash Flow is an Uncle Scrooge-adventure comic written and drawn by Don Rosa from 1987 and first of his stories where the Beagle Boys appeared. Like some others comic stories by Don Rosa (such as A Matter of Some Gravity and The Universal Solvent) that story is founded in toying with laws of nature. Rosa thinks that he has got ideas for those comics from mechanical engineering course of institute of higher education, which he took before he became to professional cartoonist.

"Cash Flow" is the debut single from rapper Ace Hood's debut album Gutta. It features T-Pain, Rick Ross and DJ Khaled with a quick intro. DJ Khaled's not credited in "Cash Flow". It is produced by The Runners.

Cash flow refers to the movement of cash into or out of a business, a project, or a financial product.

Cashflow or Cash Flow may also refer to

Cash Flow (formerly 'CNBC's Cash Flow 'and Cash Flow From Australia) was a television business news program on CNBC Asia. It is produced by CNBC Asia from Singapore by a team of journalists and aired each weekday at 10:00 am Singapore/Hong Kong/ Taiwan time. It was broadcast live from CNBC Asia's studio in Sydney and presented by Oriel Morrison and at Hong Kong's studio presented by Bernard Lo for the first hour. It was originally presented by Maura Fogarty for the first hour and Amanda Drury for the second hour and was broadcast live from Singapore. Cash Flow was seen in the United States on the CNBC World channel every Sunday through Thursday at 10:00 pm Eastern Time (9:00 pm ET without Daylight Saving Time) and on CNBC Europe at 3:00 GMT