Your Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 \"Statement of Cash Flows\" Please respond to the followi

Question

Your Rating: 1 2 3 4 5 "Statement of Cash Flows" Please respond to the following: •According to the text, when considering an investment opportunity, some investors believe the organization’s statement of cash flows is the most important factor in evaluating the health of the organization. Others argue that the investors should not use statements of cash flows because they do not show true profitability. For example, depreciation is only considered on the income statement, not on the statement of cash flows. Take a position on whether or not you agree with investor use of statements of cash flows, and provide support for your position.

Explanation / Answer

If a company reports earnings of $1 billion, does this mean it has this amount of cash in the bank? Not necessarily. Financial statements are based on accrual accounting, which takes into account non-cash items. It does this in an effort to best reflect the financial health of a company. However, accrual accounting may create accounting noise, which sometimes needs to be tuned out so that it's clear how much actual cash a company is generating. The statement of cash flow provides this information.

It is important to note the distinction between being profitable and having positive cash flow transactions: just because a company is bringing in cash does not mean it is making a profit (and vice versa).

For example, say a manufacturing company is experiencing low product demand and therefore decides to sell off half its factory equipment at liquidation prices. It will receive cash from the buyer for the used equipment, but the manufacturing company is definitely losing money on the sale: it would prefer to use the equipment to manufacture products and earn an operating profit. But since it cannot, the next best option is to sell off the equipment at prices much lower than the company paid for it. In the year that it sold the equipment, the company would end up with a strong positive cash flow, but its current and future earnings potential would be fairly bleak. Because cash flow can be positive while profitability is negative, investors should analyze income statements as well as cash flow statements, not just one or the other.

When you look at a cash flow statement, the first thing you should look at is the bottom line item that says something like "net increase/decrease in cash and cash equivalents", since this line reports the overall change in the company's cash and its equivalents (the assets that can be immediately converted into cash) over the last period. If you check under current assets on the balance sheet, you will find cash and cash equivalents (CCE or CC&E). If you take the difference between the current CCE and last year's or last quarter's, you'll get this same number found at the bottom of the statement of cash flows.

It doesn't tell the whole profitability story, cash flow doesn't do a very good job of indicating the overall financial well-being of the company. Sure, the statement of cash flow indicates what the company is doing with its cash and where cash is being generated, but these do not reflect the company's entire financial condition. The cash flow statement does not account for liabilities and assets, which are recorded on the balance sheet. Furthermoreaccounts receivable and accounts payable, each of which can be very large for a company, are also not reflected in the cash flow statement.

Based on above, a firm view and support has been taken on diagreement with the statement in question that statement of cash flows is the most important factor in evaluating the health of the organization.

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