ASC 230 STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

This chapter discusses the statement of cash flows. It also establishes standards for cash flow reporting in general purpose financial statements. A statement of cash flows is a required part of a complete set of financial statements for business enterprises and not-for-profit organizations. The statement of cash flows includes only inflows and outflows of cash and cash equivalents. Cash equivalents include any short-term, highly liquid investments (see definition in Appendix A for criteria) used as a temporary investment of idle cash. The effects of investing and financing activities that do not result in receipts or payments of cash should be reported in a separate schedule immediately following the statement of cash flows or in the notes to the financial statements. This is to preserve the statement's primary focus on cash flows from operating, investing, and financing activities. If a transaction is part cash and part noncash, only the cash portion is reported in the body of the statement of cash flows. The primary purpose of the statement of cash flows is to provide information about cash receipts and cash payments of an entity during a period. A secondary purpose is to provide information about the entity's investing and financing activities during the period. The ultimate objective of investment and credit decisions is the maximization of net cash inflows, so information for assessing the amounts, timing, and uncertainty of prospective cash flows is needed.