New Statement of Cash Flows Report

OK…I have a nasty feeling I’m going to experience a Homer Simpson “Doh!” moment when I get an answer, but here goes nothing…

Why, when I look at this new report, does it show my “Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period” (my current account balance) as a negative number when I know it was positive (the same amount reported).

The consequence is that when my net cash ins/outs for the reporting period are applied, instead of showing my current account value minus my (negative) net ins/outs, it shows my current account balance times -1, minus the net ins/outs, and therefore an even lower (negative) current account balance.

Time for more Duff Beer?

I believe this is due to the way credits / debits are inverted for bank accounts, in terms of how you would typically see things. For example if you look at your Trial Balance, that bank balance, despite being positive would show as a debit on your accounts. This seems a little counter-intuitive at first, there’s a detailed explanation for this here.

As far as the Statement of Cash Flows go, I will need to check first if this is the correct presentation. It may be that these figures need to be reversed to alleviate any confusion.

EDIT:

OK it would appear that in this case your are 100% correct. We’ve got the presentation wrong for Cash and Cash Equivalents. The values are correct but the brackets shouldn’t be there, this will be updated in the next 24 hrs.

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