13-week cash flow modeling and analysis, accrual to cash. Once we have the data we need, the process looks a lot like it does for a traditional forecast. Technically, we are reconciling the cash account by accounting for the changes in the balance sheet accounts. However, with a 13-week cash flow statement, the emphasis is really on converting the income statement to cash. In theory, these are very similar things, but we need to be careful after considering the accruals from the income statement that we have also considered other cash expenditures that impact only the balance sheet, such as CapEx. Indirect cash flows are most commonly seen in external financial statement presentation. These are most helpful when reconciling the change in cash from an existing income statement and balance sheet. However, when calculating the 13-week cash flow statement, we are taking raw data from internal sources on a weekly basis and are often not working off of a complete set of financial statements. As such, it is most useful to think of the 13-week cash flow statement as a direct cash flow statement. We also benefit from seeing not so much the reconciliation of balance sheet accounts, but rather the precise places where cash was spent, i.e suppliers, employees, and of course, where it was received.

The basic structure of the 13-week cash flow statement is broken down into operating and non-operating cash flows. Operating cash flows are cash receipts, cash collected from customers for sales or services, and cash paid or dispersed for operating activities such as merchandise, raw materials, wages, insurance, rent, taxes, et cetera. Operating disbursements can be those related to both current and non-current assets as long as they're operating in nature. As such, it includes things like CapEx. Non-operating cash flows would be financing-related or other similar expenses. At the time of compiling a 13-week cash flow statement, most spending has been curtailed to the minimum. However, we will see certain types of expenses such as expenses paid to financial advisors and legal expenses. Those are very commonly seen in the non-operating cash flow section. In the end, we will be reconciling or projecting a cash balance using any beginning cash plus the net cash flow from that week. This is of course, very similar to the way we would do a traditional cash flow statement. We then need to look at that ending cash, or if it's negative, a necessary to finance or financing gap balance in determining if financing is needed and/or if it is already available.