A cash flow is a real or virtual movement of money: *a cash flow in its narrow sense is a payment (in a currency), especially from one central bank account to another; the term 'cash flow' is mostly used to describe payments that are expected to happen in the future, are thus uncertain and therefore need to be forecast with cash flows; *a cash flow is determined by its time ''t'', nominal amount ''N'', currency ''CCY'' and account ''A''; symbolically ''CF'' = ''CF''(''t,N,CCY,A''). * it is however popular to use ''cash flow'' in a less specified sense describing (symbolic) payments into or out of a business, project, or financial product. Cash flows are narrowly interconnected with the concepts of value, ''interest rate'' and liquidity. A cash flow that shall happen on a future day ''t''_N can be transformed into a cash flow of the same value in ''t''₀.

Cash flow analysis

Cash flows are often transformed into measures that give information e.g. on a company's value and situation: *to determine a project's rate of return or value. The time of cash flows into and out of projects are used as inputs in financial models such as

internal rate of return Internal rate of return (IRR) is a method of calculating an investment’s rate of return. The term ''internal'' refers to the fact that the calculation excludes external factors, such as the risk-free rate, inflation, the cost of capital, or fin ...

and net present value. *to determine problems with a business's liquidity. Being profitable does not necessarily mean being liquid. A company can fail because of a shortage of cash even while profitable. *as an alternative measure of a business's

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...

s when it is believed that

accrual accounting Accrual (''accumulation'') of something is, in finance, the adding together of interest or different investments over a period of time. Accruals in accounting For example, a company delivers a product to a customer who will pay for it 30 days l ...

concepts do not represent economic realities. For instance, a company may be notionally profitable but generating little operational cash (as may be the case for a company that barters its products rather than selling for cash). In such a case, the company may be deriving additional operating cash by issuing shares or raising additional debt finance. *cash flow can be used to evaluate the 'quality' of income generated by