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Concept
Cash flow
Summary
A cash flow is 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 forecast with cash flows;
a cash flow CF 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 flow 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 cash flow of the same value in t0. This transformation process is known as discounting, and it takes into account the time value of money by adjusting the nominal amount of the cash flow based on the prevailing interest rates at the time.
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.
Official source
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