Financial Intelligence, Revised Edition: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

18

How Cash Connects with Everything Else

Once you’ve learned to read the cash flow statement, you can simply take it the way it comes and inspect it for what it tells you about your company’s cash situation. Then you can figure out how you affect it—how you as a manager can help better the business’s cash position. We’ll spell out some of these opportunities in chapter 19.

But if you’re the type of person who enjoys a puzzle—who likes to understand the logic of what you’re looking at—then stick with us through this chapter. Because it may have already dawned on you: you can calculate a cash flow statement just by looking at the income statement and two balance sheets.

The calculations aren’t hard: they involve no more than adding and subtracting. ...