The cash flow | Forecast

How much will we have tomorrow

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Last Updated: 2022-05-04 05:05:38 English Course Type: Self Learning

General considerations about the Cash Flow statement
Challenges of building a real life Cash Flow forecast – the direct method
Template proposal
Forecast elements – where to find them
Forecast elements – how to estimate the ones we don‘t have as such
General considerations about performing / maintaining your forecast
Alternative use of indirect method

One of the three major financial statements of the company, the cash-flow report is used only sparely by FP&A (Performance management) professionals. The other two, the Profit and Loss (or SOCI) and the Balance Sheet (or SOFP) are used more intensively. The reasons behind it are both in the area of knowledge (you can not really use something you just learned a long time ago or vaguely heard about) but mostly the reality in the field. The P&L statement is used more often because it shows the performance of a company. And because it is always very difficult to introduce, explain and use as regular tool any financial statement when it comes to interacting with managers from other functions (Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain etc.).

However, companies can find themselves in troubles too. The financial crisis of 2008-2009, the Covid pandemic of 2020 but also individual cases can lead to situations when performance is no longer important (we know the company is at a loss) but surviving as an organization takes precedence. And it is in such moments when the focus shifts from wide use of P&L statements to cash flow statements, from being performant to staying solvable.

Bankruptcy is happening when there is no money left. And the impossibility of paying the due debt may or may not be related directly and on a short term with having losses.

And if we are not in a bad financial position with our company, we always get questions from the management, which are mostly caused by the fact that accounting is accruals and not cash based: "We had profit in the last months, why is our bank account empty?", "Can we do an early repayment for our credit? How much and in which month?", "Can we pay the promised $1 dividend per share in March 20xx?", "We have this large investment requiring that much money in May and June. Can we finance it by ourselves or will we need a credit?"

This course answers to the questions about the future, being focused on building a cash flow statement forecast or budget ("Can we do an early repayment?", "Can we pay the dividend?", "Can we finance the investment?" etc.).

We assume the existence of knowledge about the structure of a cash flow statement, the direct and indirect methods, the working capital concept, the three typical cash flow groups (operational, investing and financing) and we build on a forecast template proposal using direct method, identifying in P/L and B/S forecasts (or budgets) the required elements or deriving them while we also talk about maintaining (updating) our cash-flow forecast. At the end we also touch the usage of indirect method in forecasting operational cash flow as a difficult approach.

Minimal finance and accounting knowledge
Basic Cash Flow statement knowledge
Basic Excel knowledge

FP&A Specialists
Young accountants
Managers of all levels and specialties involved in task-forces dealing with liquidity and survival of a company

Section 1 : The cash flow | Forecast 8 Lectures 01:18:42
Lecture 1 :
Part I - Introduction and summary Preview
Lecture 2 :
Part II - The Cash Flow - accruals, performance and solvency
Lecture 3 :
Part III - The forecast - method and template
Lecture 4 :
Part IV - The forecast elements - cash and inflows from clients
Lecture 5 :
Part V - The forecast elements - other operational flows I
Lecture 6 :
Part VI - The forecast elements - other operational flows II
Lecture 7 :
Part VII - The forecast elements - investment, financing and general elements
Lecture 8 :
Part VIII - The indirect method in forecasting and wrap-up

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Daniel Alexandru Petrescu,

290845 Course Views

13 Courses

Holding a MA in Management, a BSc in Accounting and being Fellow of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) UK since 2016, I am also a senior FP&A professional with more than 15 years of experience in sectors such as IT, Financial Services, Banking, FMCG, Gastronomy and Hospitality in companies like Unilever (Bucharest), Erste Group (Vienna), GE Money (Bucharest), Motto Group (Vienna).