DOES YOUR BUSINESS HAVE A HEALTHY HEART?

DOES YOUR BUSINESS HAVE A HEALTHY HEART?

✦ John Clarke explains how cash flow is the lifeline of a business

What kind of heart does your business have? Is it a cash-generating machine or a cash eating monster? Cash flow to a business is like bloodflow to a person. A healthy cash flow provides money to pay the bills, to reinvest in the business and to share with the owners.

A lot of the time in business we look at the Profit & Loss Statement (sometimes called the Income Statement) and the Balance Sheet (sometimes called the Financial Position Statement). These can be misleading because a business could have a “healthy” profit, and more assets than liabilities (money it owes), if the business’ assets are tied up in money owing to it, it might not have enough money to pay the bills when they need to be paid.

There’s a missing link between the Profit & Loss Statement and the Balance Sheet which ties them together. This is the Statement of Cash Flows.

A typical statement of cash flows splits cash into three categories:

1. Cash flows from operating activities

2 . Cash flows from investing activities, and

3. Cash flows from financing activitiesand looks a bit like the image on the right:

Looking at this I see a business that is generating cash from its usual activities, and which can reinvest and reduce its loans and pay dividends to its shareholders

Contact me at john.clarke@stptax.com if you would like further information on how your business can be a cash-generating machine.

As always the advice in this article is general in nature and you should contact an accountant or tax agent for advice that is specific to your circumstances.