Cash Flow Course

Lesson 1 • Reading a Cash Flow Statement

Walks through the structure and line items of a standard cash flow statement. Students gain confidence interpreting real financial documents.

Lesson 2 • The Three Cash Flow Categories

Introduces operating, investing, and financing cash flows and their distinct roles. Students learn to classify any transaction into the correct category.

Lesson 3 • Setting Up a Cash Flow Mindset

Establishes habits and mental frameworks for monitoring cash proactively rather than reactively. Prepares students for disciplined cash management practice.

Lesson 4 • Cash Flow Drivers in Any Business

Identifies the internal and external factors that accelerate or restrict cash movement. Connects macro and operational variables to cash outcomes.

Lesson 1 • Net Cash Position and Opening Balances

Shows how to calculate period-end cash balances by combining inflows, outflows, and opening cash. Students understand the rolling balance mechanic.

Lesson 2 • Forecast Horizons and Purposes

Explains why forecast length and granularity depend on business context and decision needs. Students select the right horizon before building any model.

Lesson 3 • Projecting Cash Inflows

Covers methods for estimating future receipts from sales, collections, and other income sources. Students apply percentage-of-sales and historical trend techniques.

Lesson 4 • Forecast Assumptions and Documentation

Establishes best practices for recording, labeling, and communicating the assumptions behind every forecast figure. Builds credibility and auditability.

Lesson 1 • Understanding Days Sales Outstanding

Defines DSO, explains its calculation, and shows its direct impact on available cash. Students benchmark their DSO against industry norms.

Lesson 2 • Invoicing Best Practices

Identifies invoicing errors and delays that slow payment and teaches corrective practices. Faster, accurate invoicing directly accelerates cash receipt.

Lesson 3 • Collections Process and Follow-Up

Builds a structured, escalating collections workflow from reminder to escalation. Students create a collections calendar that reduces overdue balances.

Lesson 4 • Credit Policy and Customer Terms

Covers how credit terms granted to customers directly shape cash inflow timing. Students design terms that balance sales growth with cash speed.

Lesson 1 • Early Payment Discount Analysis

Shows how to calculate the annualized cost of forgoing early payment discounts and decide when to take them. Connects discount decisions to cash position.

Lesson 2 • Payables Process Controls

Establishes internal controls that prevent duplicate payments, fraud, and unauthorized spending. Protects cash outflows through systematic oversight.

Lesson 3 • Days Payable Outstanding Fundamentals

Defines DPO, its calculation, and its role as a lever for retaining cash longer. Students see how DPO interacts with DSO in the cash cycle.

Lesson 4 • Negotiating Supplier Payment Terms

Provides tactics for extending payment terms with suppliers while preserving goodwill. Students practice negotiation scenarios that improve cash position.

Lesson 1 • Working Capital Ratios and Targets

Introduces current ratio, quick ratio, and net working capital as diagnostic tools. Students set evidence-based working capital targets for their context.

Lesson 2 • The Cash Conversion Cycle

Defines the cash conversion cycle and shows how its three components combine to determine cash tied up in operations. Students calculate their own CCC.

Lesson 3 • Inventory Management and Cash

Explores how excess inventory locks up cash and teaches lean inventory principles to free it. Students apply reorder point and safety stock concepts.

Lesson 4 • Reducing the Cash Conversion Cycle

Provides a structured approach to simultaneously improving DSO, DPO, and inventory turns. Students prioritize the highest-impact levers for their business.

Lesson 1 • Updating Forecasts with Actuals

Establishes a rolling forecast process that integrates actual results to continuously improve accuracy. Students build a variance-driven update routine.

Lesson 2 • Stress Testing Cash Positions

Applies extreme but plausible shocks to the forecast to find the breaking point of cash reserves. Students determine minimum viable cash buffers.

Lesson 3 • Contingency Planning and Triggers

Links stress test results to pre-defined action plans activated when cash drops below set thresholds. Students create a tiered response playbook.

Lesson 4 • Sensitivity Analysis Techniques

Teaches one-variable and multi-variable sensitivity analysis to identify which inputs most affect cash outcomes. Students rank key risk drivers by impact.

Lesson 1 • Designing Effective Cash Reports

Covers the principles of report design that make cash data immediately actionable for decision-makers. Students apply layout, hierarchy, and visual clarity rules.

Lesson 2 • Communicating Cash Concerns Early

Addresses the professional and organizational dynamics of raising cash risk before it becomes a crisis. Students practice early-warning communication.

Lesson 3 • Cash Flow KPIs and Dashboards

Defines the most important cash flow KPIs and shows how to display them in a live dashboard. Students select and configure metrics relevant to their role.

Lesson 4 • Presenting to Leadership and Boards

Prepares students to present cash flow findings confidently to senior leaders and board members. Covers structure, tone, and handling tough questions.

Lesson 1 • Building a Cash-Resilient Business Model

Examines how business model choices—pricing, payment structure, and customer mix—create structural cash flow advantages. Students redesign one element for cash resilience.

Lesson 2 • Cash Flow During Downturns

Provides a playbook for protecting cash during revenue contractions, including cost reduction sequencing and liquidity preservation tactics.

Lesson 3 • Capital Allocation and Cash Priorities

Teaches a framework for deciding how to deploy surplus cash across reinvestment, debt reduction, and distributions. Students rank allocation options by strategic fit.

Lesson 4 • Free Cash Flow and Business Value

Defines free cash flow, its calculation, and its role as the primary driver of business valuation. Students connect operational decisions to enterprise value.