Cash flow statement

Operating activities include the production, sales and delivery of the company's product as well as collecting payment from its customers. This could include purchasing raw materials, building inventory, advertising, and shipping the product.

Operating cash flows include:[15][16]

• Receipts for the sale of loans, debt or equity instruments in a trading portfolio
• Interest received on loans
• Payments to suppliers for goods and services
• Payments to employees or on behalf of employees
• Interest payments (alternatively, this can be reported under financing activities in IAS 3)
• Purchases of merchandise

Items which are added back to (or subtracted from, as appropriate) net income (which is found on the Income Statement) to arrive at cash flows from operations generally include:

• Depreciation (loss of tangible asset value over time)
• Deferred tax
• Amortization (loss of intangible asset value over time)
• Any gains or losses associated with the sale of a non-current asset, because associated cash flows do not belong in the operating section (unrealized gains/losses are also added back from the income statement)
• Dividends received general reserves

Examples of investing activities are:[17]

• Purchase or sale of an asset
• Loans made to suppliers
• Payments related to mergers and acquisitions

Financing activities include inflows and outflows of cash between investors and the company, such as:[18]

• Dividends paid
• Sale or repurchase of the company's stock
• Net borrowings
• Repayment of debt principal, including capital leases
• Other activities which impact the company's long-term liabilities and equity

The direct method for creating a cash flow statement reports major classes of gross cash receipts and payments. Under IAS 7, dividends received may be reported under operating activities or under investing activities. If taxes paid are directly linked to operating activities, they are reported under operating activities; if the taxes are directly linked to investing activities or financing activities, they are reported under investing or financing activities. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) vary from International Financial Reporting Standards in that under GAAP rules, dividends received from a company's investing activities is reported as an "operating activity," not an "investing activity."[20]

Sample cash flow statement using the direct method[21]

The indirect method uses net-income as a starting point, makes adjustments for all transactions for non-cash items, then adjusts from all cash-based transactions. An increase in an asset account is subtracted from net income, and an increase in a liability account is added back to net income. This method converts accrual-basis net income (or loss) into cash flow by using a series of additions and deductions.[22]

The following rules can be followed to calculate Cash Flows from Operating Activities when given only a two-year comparative balance sheet and the Net Income figure. Cash Flows from Operating Activities can be found by adjusting Net Income relative to the change in beginning and ending balances of Current Assets, Current Liabilities, and sometimes Long Term Assets. When comparing the change in long term assets over a year, the accountant must be certain that these changes were caused entirely by their devaluation rather than purchases or sales (i.e. they must be operating items not providing or using cash) or if they are non-operating items.[23]

• Decrease in non-cash current assets are added to net income
• Increase in non-cash current asset are subtracted from net income
• Increase in current liabilities are added to net income
• Decrease in current liabilities are subtracted from net income
• Expenses with no cash outflows are added back to net income (depreciation and/or amortization expense are the only operating items that have no effect on cash flows in the period)
• Revenues with no cash inflows are subtracted from net income
• Non operating losses are added back to net income
• Non operating gains are subtracted from net income

The intricacies of this procedure might be seen as,

${\displaystyle {\text{Net Cash Flows from Operating Activities}}={\text{ Net Income}}+{\text{Rule Items}}}$

For example, consider a company that has a net income of $100 this year, and its A/R increased by $25 since the beginning of the year. If the balances of all other current assets, long term assets and current liabilities did not change over the year, the cash flows could be determined by the rules above as $100 – $25 = Cash Flows from Operating Activities = $75. The logic is that, if the company made $100 that year (net income), and they are using the accrual accounting system (not cash based) then any income they generated that year which has not yet been paid for in cash should be subtracted from the net income figure in order to find cash flows from operating activities. And the increase in A/R meant that $25 of sales occurred on credit and have not yet been paid for in cash.

In the case of finding Cash Flows when there is a change in a fixed asset account, say the Buildings and Equipment account decreases, the change is added back to Net Income. The reasoning behind this is that because Net Income is calculated by, Net Income = Rev - Cogs - Depreciation Exp - Other Exp then the Net Income figure will be decreased by the building's depreciation that year. This depreciation is not associated with an exchange of cash, therefore the depreciation is added back into net income to remove the non-cash activity.

Finding the Cash Flows from Financing Activities is much more intuitive and needs little explanation. Generally, the things to account for are financing activities:

• Include as outflows, reductions of long term notes payable (as would represent the cash repayment of debt on the balance sheet)
• Or as inflows, the issuance of new notes payable
• Include as outflows, all dividends paid by the entity to outside parties
• Or as inflows, dividend payments received from outside parties
• Include as outflows, the purchase of notes stocks or bonds
• Or as inflows, the receipt of payments on such financing vehicles.

In the case of more advanced accounting situations, such as when dealing with subsidiaries, the accountant must

• Exclude intra-company dividend payments.
• Exclude intra-company bond interest.

A traditional equation for this might look something like,

${\displaystyle {\begin{alignedat}{2}{\text{Net Cash Flows from Financing Activities}}=&\left[{\text{Dividends received from }}3^{\rm {rd}}{\text{ parties}}\right]\\&-\left[{\text{Dividends paid to }}3^{\rm {rd}}{\text{ parties}}\right]\\&-[{\text{Dividends paid to NCI but not}}\\&{\text{intracompany dividend payments}}]\end{alignedat}}}$

Example: cash flow of XYZ:[24][25][26]