Like the income statement, Coca-Cola's cashflow statement is for a period of time, the year ended 31st of December, 2023.

With an additional two years of historic information shown.

It is also in millions of US dollars.

The purpose of the flow statement is to explain the change in cash.

On the balance sheet. We see that reconciliation right at the bottom of the cash flow statement.

Before we get there, take note that the cash flows are broken down into three sections, operating, investing, and financing activities.

While this might look daunting with all the details, especially in the operating activity section, remember that the cashflow statement shows all cash inflows and outflows.

The reason the operating activity section might initially look a little confusing is that instead of starting from nothing and just recording operating cash inflows and outflows, it is quicker to start with a net income figure from the income statement and make adjustments to it so that it represents cashflow.

Cashflow from operating activities is very important as this effectively represents what the company does as opposed to how it is financed or the investment decisions it makes.

It would be concerning to see a net cash outflow from operating activities on a consistent basis for a mature company.

Under investing activities, we see cash purchases and sales of property, plant and equipment and other investments.

And under financing activities, we see cash inflows from taking out more debt, issuance of loans, notes payable and long-term debt and stock and cash outflows from repaying debt, buying back shares, and paying dividends to shareholders.

The bottom of Coca-Cola's cashflow statement has a couple of complex items like restricted cash, but to keep things simple, adding together the 11.6 billion from operating activities, subtracting the 3.3 billion cash used in investing activities and subtracting the 8.3 billion of cash used in financing activities together with the exchange rate changes of negative 73 million gives us the net decrease in cash for the year of 133 million.

And this together with the opening balance of cash, explains how we arrive at the 9.4 billion cash on the balance sheet as at the 31st of December, 2023.