Cash Flow Statement

Customizable financial format to report agency cash flows

Last updated April 22, 2024

Overview

A cash flow statement is a financial statement that shows cash and cash equivalents coming in and out of a business.  A company's liquidity can be determined by looking at the inflow and outflow of cash from the following areas: 

• Operating activities
• Investing activities 
• Financing activities

Agencies can use Accountability's  Financial Report Formats to create a Cash Flow Statement format based on Balance Sheet data. 

Creating a Cash Flow Statement Format

1. Navigate to Accounting > General Ledger > General Ledger Accounts and click the Financial Report Formats link.  
   
   
2. Click the New Financial Report Format button. 
   
   
3. This will bring up a new report format builder. Start by defining the data source (report type) and name the new format. 
    
   1. Select Balance Sheet from the Report Type dropdown list.  
   2. Enter a Report Name, i.e. Cash Flow Statement. This the name that will be displayed on the list of formats for the interactive Balance Sheet Statement.
   3. Enter a Report Title.  
4. The next section of the report builder is where you'll define the report rows including headers, sub-headers, line item details, sub-totals and totals.  
   
   
   The following steps will walk you through creating a Cash Flow Statement that follows the standard format.  You can customize this as needed.  
   
   Tip:  
   While it's best practice to draft your desired report format on paper to determine the sort order, you can always insert lines. For example, if you want to insert a line between 1.00000 and 2.00000, you can simply set the Sort Order to 1.10000.
   
   
5. Let's take the first cash flow reporting group, i.e. Operating Activities 
   1. Define the group header:  Select the Line Type Heading and add a Description of "Operating Activities".  You can optionally bold the text for this heading by clicking the Bold checkbox.
   2. Define the accounts to be included in this group:  Select the Line Type and corresponding account numbers as laid out on the table below.  
      

      IF . . .	Select the Line Type	Populate
      the account numbers are in consecutive order  and you want to list them individually	Account Range - List Accounts	From Account No. and To Account No.
      the account numbers are in consecutive order  and you want to show summary total of all accounts	Account Range - Summary	From Account No. and To Account No.
      you want to list accounts that are not in a range	Single Account	the account number in the From Account No. column

       
   3. If you selected Account Range - Summary as the Line Type , use the Description to add a label.  For Operating Activities, you might want to aggregate the transaction amounts for the accounts selected and label the aggregated line as "Net Income".
   4. Define whether you want the amount for each account line or summary to be a positive or negative value: 
      1. If the net balance for the transactions of the selected account(s) is  usually a Debit and you would like to display the value on the report as positive, keep the default Value of DR-CR. 
      2. If the net balance for the transactions of the selected account(s) is usually a Credit and you would like to display the value on the report as positive, set the Value to CR-DR. 
   5. In the Cashflow Statement column, select a Balance type of Movement to show how the changes in the selected account(s) impact your cash position. 
   6. Keep the Total As  column to the plus symbol (+) so that the transaction amounts for the selected account(s) are added to the next total line. 
   7. To capture adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operations, follow these steps:
      
      1. Add a Total Line for Net Income:
         1. Suppress the Net Income line by checking the Suppress box.
         2. Add a Line Type of Total.  This will enable you to add your Net Income with the adjustment total to arrive at your net cash from Operating Activities. The Total Level defaults to 1.  This means that all previous lines with a Total Level of 0 and a Total As of + will be included in this total's calculation.   Add a Description of "Net Income".
      2. To list all of the adjustments that need to be made to the Net Income figure over a given period to obtain the Change in Cash value over the same period:
         1. Add  new line types to list the relevant accounts to include on the Cash Flow Statement.  See Accounts Line Types for more details. 
            
            
         2. Set the Cash Flow Statement to Movement. 
      3. Add a Total Line for Adjustments: 
         1. Add a Line Type of Total.  This will enable you to add your Net Income with the adjustment total to arrive at your net cash from Operating Activities. The Total Level defaults to 1.  This means that all previous lines with a Total Level of 0 and a Total As of + will be included in this total's calculation.  Add a Description, i.e. "Adjustments to reconcile Net Income to Net Cash provided by operations"
   8. Add a Total Line for Operating Activities:  Add a Line Type of Total and set the Total Level to 2.  net cash from Operating Activities. This means that all previous lines with a Total Level of 1and a Total As of + will be included in this total's calculation.  In this scenario, the system will add up the Net Income Total and Adjustments total. 
6. Repeat the steps in #5 for Investing Activities and Financing Activities. 
7. To add a Total Line for Net Cash Increase (Decrease):
   1. First, create a Total Level 2 to add up the Investing Activities and Financing Activities total. 
   2. Add a Total Line with a Total Level of 3.  This will sum up all of the total lines with a total level of 2, i.e. "Operating Activities" plus the subtotal of "Investing Activities" and "Operating Activities". 
8. You can report on your cash at the beginning of the period by creating a Line Type and selecting the range of your Cash and Cash Equivalents accounts.  Set the Cash Flow Statement option to "Opening Balance" and add a Description, i.e. "Cash at Beginning of Period".
9. You can report on your cash at the end of the period by creating a Line Type and selecting the range of your Cash and Cash Equivalents accounts.  Set the Cash Flow Statement option to "Closing Balance" and add a Description, i.e. "Cash at End of Period".
   
   See a sample Cash Flow Financial Report Format below:

Generating a Cash Flow Statement

1. Navigate to Accounting > General Ledger > Balance Sheet Statements. 
2. Select from the list of available Balance Sheet Column Formats: Monthly, Month & Year to Date, Consolidation, Last Year Comparison. 
3. Select the Cash Flow Statement report format.  Note that the format name reflects the Report Name of the Financial Report Format. 
   
4. Fill out the rest of the report filters as needed.  For more information on Accountability's  interactive financial statements, click here.