Cash Flow vs Income Statement why are they the same total

James Young

I am running Mac)Q 10.13.6, Quicken version 5.15.2.

I am trying to generate a true cash flow statement. When I run a summary report, regardless of whether I customize for Income/expense or cash flow I get the same "Total". Note if I run this to include or exclude transfers the result is the same on both as well.

It seems to only generate a different format with the same total. In a traditional cash flow report the net income is going to differ from the net cash flow. it is going to vary, for instance with Mortgage payments as the mortgage principle amount would not show as an expense in an Income Statement but would show as a cash flow item.

I always have a hard time converting standard GL accounting to Quicken and believe this may be a case in point. I may be incorrectly using the category field?? in the entries or report?

Can someone please explain why this is happening with this report and advise how I can generate a true cash flow report?

Thanks for any assistance.

John_M

You don't need to go through your accounts to determine which are true cashflow items. In Quicken, these would be anything under the "Banking" section of the sidebar (Cash, Savings, Credit Card). The other two sections ("Investing" and "Property & Debt") do not affect your cashflow.

Here are the steps to create the report you're looking for:

Create a Summary Report and in the Accounts tab choose only the accounts under Banking. Make sure that Investing and Property & Debt accounts are not checked.

On the Advanced tab, check "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report." This will show the cash side of a transfer, but not the receiving side.

By the way, I also have a report called "Change in Net Worth" which is exactly the same, except that it includes all accounts and excludes all transfers.

jacobs

I'm not sure I fully understand, but one of the key things to think about for cash flow reporting is that you want to include only one side of transfers. If you include all your accounts, then transfers out of one account and into another account will offset each other; if you include selective accounts (say checking, but not your loan account), your report will effectively show the transfer. Does the make sense?

James Young

Thanks Jason,

I understand what you are saying however it seems it would be difficult so go though all accounts and determine which entries were true cash flow items or not.

In double entry accounting a cash flow statement is created by taking net income/loss and reconciling to the change in cash balance by adding or subtracting increases or decreases in assets and liabilities that are non-cash items. Thus typically there would be variance between cash flow and income/expense.

I was hoping that quicken's cash flow report would serve this purpose but I am not finding that the case. Hoping there is a way to generate the report from Quicken?

John_M

You don't need to go through your accounts to determine which are true cashflow items. In Quicken, these would be anything under the "Banking" section of the sidebar (Cash, Savings, Credit Card). The other two sections ("Investing" and "Property & Debt") do not affect your cashflow.

Here are the steps to create the report you're looking for:

Create a Summary Report and in the Accounts tab choose only the accounts under Banking. Make sure that Investing and Property & Debt accounts are not checked.

On the Advanced tab, check "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report." This will show the cash side of a transfer, but not the receiving side.

By the way, I also have a report called "Change in Net Worth" which is exactly the same, except that it includes all accounts and excludes all transfers.

James Young

John,

This works beautifully. Thanks for your assistance!