Cash Flow
Cash flow is the distribution of cost over time. That is to say, cash flow is the movement of money in or out of a project (or business) during a specific time period.
Note: In the context of capital projects, cash flow is the estimating of future spends to be incurred on a project, based on current actuals.
The term cash flow is synonymous with cash flow forecasting, spends forecasting, and time-phasing of budget, which all refer to the availability of proper funding in each future period (month, quarter, or year).
Cash flow management includes the following steps:
- Establishing a baseline spending plan: Baseline
- Tracking actual costs: Actuals
- Calculating future expenditures based on project schedules: Forecast
Note: Cash flow forecasting is used to ensure that cash is available when payments are due.
You can create cash flow at multiple levels in a project to:
- Track cash flow for the entire Project/Shell: Project/Shell
- Track the costs associated with summary CBS code: Summary CBS
- Track cash flow at the CBS code level, across all or specific CBS code: CBS
- Track cash flow data for an entire commit record, including base commits, change commits, and related invoice: Commitment