Profit tells you whether the business is working. Cash tells you whether it survives the month. The Cash Flow report is the second one: it counts only the money that actually moved through your accounts, so it is the figure to trust when you are deciding whether you can pay a supplier, make payroll or take on a cost this week.
Read monthly, it also shows you the shape of your business — the months where money reliably goes out before it comes in. That pattern is the thing you plan around; most cash crises are seasonal and visible in advance.
What to know before you read it
- Cash Flow and Profit & Loss will disagree, and both will be right. Profit & Loss counts an invoice the day you send it; Cash Flow counts it the day the money arrives. Invoice a customer R30,000 in May and get paid in June, and May's Profit & Loss shows R30,000 while May's Cash Flow shows nothing. Profit & Loss asks "is this business working?" Cash Flow asks "can I pay the rent on Friday?"
- A gap between the two is a collections problem, not an accounting error. If sales look healthy and cash doesn't, the money is sitting in invoices your customers haven't paid. Go to Sales, filter to what's overdue, and start chasing.
- It only counts what stub knows about. Cash paid or received outside your connected accounts has to be recorded before it shows up here — see Record income and expenses, and give each cash pot its own account so the figure is countable: Set up your cash accounts.
- Check the warnings at the top. stub flags uncategorised transactions and missing opening balances at the top of the report — both throw the figures out, so clear them before you trust a number.
- Tags narrow it to a project or branch. Cash Flow doesn't offer the By tag column split that Profit & Loss does, but the Tag filter in the header narrows the whole report to one tag — so you can still see whether a job generates cash or quietly consumes it.
Where to find it
Head to Insights, click the report name at the top of the page and pick Cash Flow from the picker — or choose it from Reports in the sidebar. The date control at the top sets the period, the Compare selector breaks it down Monthly or Yearly, and the Tag filter narrows it to one project or branch.
Read the report
- Cash in — money that actually landed in your accounts.
- Cash out — money that actually left them.
- Net — the difference. Positive means your balance grew over the period; negative means it shrank.
Download it
Click ··· → Download, pick PDF or CSV, set the dates and download — the details are in Export & share a report.
Check it against your dashboard
Go to Insights and look at the Cash in and Cash out figures for a quick read on the current month without opening the full report.
Tip: Cash flow tight while sales look healthy? The money is sitting in unpaid invoices. Go to Sales, filter to what's overdue, and start chasing. See Track & chase unpaid invoices.