Cash Flows
In finance, cash flow refers to the amounts of cash being received and spent by a business during a defined period of time, sometimes tied to a specific project.
Most of the time cash flows are being used to determine gaps in the liquid position of a company. For this reason only the total amount of cash flowing in and out of a company matters. However when using cash flows as a benchmark tool (for example when calculating the internal rate of return) it is better to separate the total cash flow into separate cash flows streams. 2005. Another reason for separating the different types of flows is that it makes it much easier to read cash flows statements and to determine when earnings are being manipulated.
There are multiple types of flows of incoming and outgoing cash that are included in the total cash flow amount:
Operational cash flows: Cash received or expended as a result of the companies core business activities. Investment cash flows: Cash received or expended by making capital expenditures (i. e the purchase of new machinery), the making investments or acquisitions. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS.