Read your cash flow

The cash flow statement explains the change in your cash over the range you pick. It starts from net income and sorts every other movement into operating, investing and financing activities, each with its own total, and ends with the net change in cash.

The cash flow statement shows why your cash moved over a range: what your operations brought in, what you spent on long-lived assets, and what you borrowed, repaid or exchanged with owners.

Before you start

• Set up your chart of accounts

Steps

1. Open Cash flow under Accounting and pick the date range.

   Open in the app

2. Read operating activities from net income, then the changes in receivables, payables, cards and other day-to-day balances that kept cash from matching it.

3. Read investing and financing activities, each with its total. The last line is the net change in cash, which equals closing cash less opening cash.

4. Compare with the previous period or the same period last year from the comparison menu.

Check it worked

The net change in cash equals closing cash less opening cash, and closing cash matches the cash and bank accounts on the balance sheet on the range's last day. An opening balance you enter inside the range counts as starting cash, not as activity.