It goes beyond the traditional income statement and balance sheet by focusing specifically on the movement of cash within a given period, typically a fiscal year. The cash flow statement serves a crucial role in providing comprehensive financial information about a company’s liquidity and cash management. In general, companies strive to achieve a positive cash flow for their business. The insights garnered from a cash flow statement play a pivotal role in aiding management’s decision-making process, allowing for the regulation of business operations based on well-informed judgments. This statement proves to be invaluable in terms of facilitating cash forecasting, which in turn enables effective short-term planning. Essentially, a cash flow statement is a financial statement that provides a comprehensive overview of a company’s cash inflows and outflows during a specified period. Before delving into the process of reading a cash flow statement, it is important to establish a clear understanding of what exactly a cash flow statement entails.