Cash Flow Management
Cash flow in a company is like blood flow in body. Although many companies do Profitable activities, there is a possibility that they are in cries due to the lack of cash flow.
Today in most organizations, there are powerful financial systems but in Project-based companies, these systems have certain requirements.one of required capabilities in Project-based companies is the possibility of a Permanent comparison of paid payments.
Company’s managers need to investigate, control and analysis cash flow statement in their organizations. In fact, cash flows in a company are like financial thermometers for executives therefore, managers look for analysis and manage cash flows so that, they can control their cost and benefit. Consequently, they can make better decision about their organization’s current activities. But the organizations structures are different. Some of them are project-based and some of them are operation-based or commercial (as it will be called in this text). So cash flows can be either because of projects or other operation than the projects.
Project-based Cash Flow Management
In project-based structures, main stakeholders are employer, forth party, consultant, and contractor. All of these stakeholders have different point of views when it comes to project’s cash flow management. In fact, cash flows will be the result of the exchange of finances between these stakeholders. All stakeholders in a project are looking for cost savings and economic justification for entering the project. The analysis of this economic justification is based on the prediction of cash flows.
Commercial cash flow management
Managing organizations that earn revenue from projects and non-project activities and also spend on these projects and activities, requires to integrate revenues and expenses related to these projects and activities. Cash flow management software proposes scenario concept and scenario basket in order to achieve mentioned integration and therefore to manage cash flows and portfolio.
In cash flow program, different types of scenarios can be defined. The scenarios could be a project or a business activity or any other activities that can make income or expense for your organization. When a scenario is a project, by using project’s Schedule the future cash flow of that project can be estimated. In fact, cash flow program updates the transaction timeline of a scenario. If your corporation uses both cash flow management and project management modules, this update is done automatically. It should be mentioned that, control project program just estimates current project expenses and in order to estimate the future income, you can use cash flow management software. This way the cash flow of the project is determined.