Cash Flow Report
The Cash Flow Report provides a structured view of your store's financial activity organized into operating, investing, and financing activities. It combines sales data, business expenses, purchase orders, and manually tracked expenses to produce a statement of cash flows for any date range.
The Cash Flow Report is disabled by default. Enable it under Settings > Edit Settings > Operations tab, in the Cash Flow Reporting section. Enabling this flag also unlocks Business Expenses and Historical Snapshots.
Accessing the Report
- Log in to the Admin Panel.
- Navigate to Reports in the navigation.
- Click Cash Flow.
- Select a date range using the start and end date pickers.
- Click Generate to load the report.
The report can be exported as CSV or PDF using the buttons at the top of the page.
Report Structure
The report is organized into three activity sections following standard cash flow statement conventions.
Operating Activities
Covers day-to-day business operations:
| Line Item | Source |
|---|---|
| Gross Sales | Completed sales totals (excluding delivery and shipping fees) |
| Delivery Fees | Delivery and shipping fee revenue from completed sales |
| Refunds | Completed returns |
| Discounts | All discount types (campaign, loyalty tier, quality tier, manual, promo code, membership) |
| Net Revenue | Gross Sales + Delivery Fees - Refunds - Discounts |
| Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) | Sum of unit_cost x quantity across completed sale line items |
| Gross Profit | Net Revenue - COGS |
| Gross Margin % | Gross Profit / Net Revenue |
| Operating Expenses | Business expenses categorized as "operating" (rent, utilities, payroll, insurance, etc.) |
| Net Operating Cash Flow | Gross Profit - Total Operating Expenses |
Investing Activities
Covers capital expenditures:
| Line Item | Source |
|---|---|
| Equipment Purchases | Business expenses categorized as "investing" |
| Inventory Purchases | Purchase orders with status "received", summed by received_at date |
| Net Investing Cash Flow | -(Equipment + Inventory Purchases) |
Financing Activities
Covers financing outflows:
| Line Item | Source |
|---|---|
| Financing Expenses | Business expenses categorized as "financing" (loan payments, owner draws) |
| Net Financing Cash Flow | -(Total Financing Expenses) |
Net Cash Flow
The sum of all three activity sections: Net Operating + Net Investing + Net Financing.
Monthly Breakdown
For date ranges spanning multiple months, the report includes a month-by-month table showing revenue, COGS, gross profit, operating expenses, and net cash flow per month. This allows you to spot trends and seasonal patterns.
Prior Period Comparison
The report automatically calculates the equivalent prior period (same number of days immediately before the selected range) and shows:
- Prior period net cash flow
- Prior period net revenue
- Prior period gross margin %
- Change in net cash flow (dollar amount and percentage)
If no live data exists for the prior period, the system falls back to a Historical Financial Snapshot if one has been imported for that range.
Business Expenses
Business expenses are managed separately under Products > Business Expenses (available when the Cash Flow feature is enabled). Each expense has:
- Category — Determines the default cash flow section (see table below).
- Amount — The expense value.
- Cash Flow Section — Operating, Investing, or Financing. Auto-assigned based on category but can be overridden.
- Recurrence — One-time or recurring (weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annual).
| Category | Default Section |
|---|---|
| Rent, Utilities, Payroll, Insurance, Licenses & Permits, Maintenance, Marketing, Supplies, Professional Services, Other | Operating |
| Equipment | Investing |
| Loan Payment, Owner Draw | Financing |
Recurring expenses are "materialized" for the report period — each occurrence within the date range is included as a separate entry.
Historical Snapshots
Historical Snapshots allow importing prior financial data (e.g., from a previous POS system like Clover). Snapshots are used as a fallback when prior period live data is unavailable. Manage them under Reports > Historical Snapshots.
Owner Portal
Multi-store owners can view a consolidated cash flow report across all their stores at Owner Portal > Reports > Cash Flow, powered by MultiStoreCashFlowService.
Notes
- All monetary calculations use the store's local timezone for date boundaries.
- COGS requires
unit_costto be set on products. Products without a unit cost contribute $0 to COGS. - The Cash Flow Report is a management tool. It is not a substitute for formal accounting software or CPA-prepared financial statements.