Operating working capital is a useful way to reduce the number of lines in your cash flow statements Here I've got a long cash flow statement Each of the operating working capital items are individually reported They're the three items at the top: accounts receivable, inventories and accounts payable What I could is just sum those three up and instead report just one line as the increase or decrease in operating working capital Let's do that! I've got increase or decrease in accounts receivable of negative 10 Inventories negative 25, so I'm already at negative 35 But then accounts payable, positive 15. So that takes me now to negative 20 And in my shortened cash flow statement, that's what we've got Increase or decrease in operating working capital negative 20 A handy way to reduce the number of lines in a cash flow statement