The Cash Flow Statement is an important document that provides details of actual cash required by your business on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
It essentially provides insight into cash inflows and outflows of a company. Good cash flow management is critical to running a successful business. So it’s important to find effective ways of doing this to get an accurate picture of the true financial standing of your company.
A cash flow statement helps you highlight shortfalls in cash. It’s important to make sure that your company has enough money in the bank account for it to be able to pay all its bills.
One way of improving cash flow in your business, is by speeding up your cash inflows and by slowing down outflows within reason. Some ways you could do this is by billing regularly, chasing bad debt, managing stock effectively and by putting money away during peaks.
The cash flow statement is divided into three main sections, including:
- Operating activities- these make up day-to-day business activities.
- Investing activities- this includes the buying and selling of assets.
- Financing activities- this involves borrowing from creditors and repaying loans.
Here is an example of a cash flow statement template:
Monthly Cashflow Forecast | ||||||||
Business Name | ||||||||
Year Ended XX/XX/XX | Month | Month | Month | Month | ||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Total | Total | |||
Forecast | Forecast | Forecast | Forecast | |||||
Cash receipts | ||||||||
Cash sales | 0 | |||||||
Cash collected from debtors | 0 | |||||||
Other income | 0 | |||||||
Loan or other cash introduced | 0 | |||||||
Sales of assets | 0 | |||||||
Total cash inflow | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Cash cost of sales | ||||||||
Purchases/Materials | 0 | |||||||
Total cost of sales | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
|
||||||||
Cash expenditure | ||||||||
Salaries/wages | 0 | |||||||
PAYE/NI | 0 | |||||||
Lease payments | 0 | |||||||
Commissions | 0 | |||||||
Repairs and maintenance | 0 | |||||||
Office supplies | 0 | |||||||
Advertising & promotions | 0 | |||||||
External services | 0 | |||||||
Vehicle costs | 0 | |||||||
Travelling | 0 | |||||||
Accounting | 0 | |||||||
Legal costs | 0 | |||||||
Professional services | 0 | |||||||
Rent | 0 | |||||||
Council tax | 0 | |||||||
Water rates | 0 | |||||||
Telephone | 0 | |||||||
Utilities | 0 | |||||||
Insurance | 0 | |||||||
Interest | 0 | |||||||
Bank charges | 0 | |||||||
VAT/(VAT) | 0 | |||||||
Corporation tax | 0 | |||||||
Other taxes | 0 | |||||||
Sundry expenses | 0 | |||||||
Total expenditure | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Cash capital payments | ||||||||
Dividends | 0 | |||||||
Loan repayments | 0 | |||||||
Assets purchased | 0 | |||||||
Drawings | 0 | |||||||
Total capital payments | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Total cash outflow | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
Opening balance | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
Net cash receipts/(expenditure) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Closing balance | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||