Classification of Cash Flows

Cash receipts and cash payments must be classified as operating, investing, or financing activities on the basis of the nature of the cash flow.

Cash flows should be grouped into operating, investing or financing activities to enable investors and creditors to evaluate significant relationships within and between those activities.

Investing Activities

Investing activities include making and collecting loans and acquiring and disposing of debt or equity instruments and property, plant, and equipment and other productive assets, that is, assets held for or used in the production of goods or services by the entity (other than materials that are part of the entity’s inventory). Investing activities exclude acquiring and disposing of certain loans or other debt or equity instruments that are acquired specifically for resale.

Financing activities

Financing activities include obtaining resources from owners and providing them with a return on, and a return of, their investment; receiving restricted resources that by donor stipulation must be used for long-term purposes; borrowing money and repaying amounts borrowed, or otherwise settling the obligation; and obtaining and paying for other resources obtained from creditors on long-term credit.

Certain cash receipts and payments may have aspects of more than one class of cash flows. In such circumstances, entities must determine the appropriate classification by considering when to (1) separate cash receipts and cash payments and classify them into more than one class of cash flows and (2) classify the aggregate of those cash receipts and payments into one class of cash flows based on predominance.

Operating Activities

Operating activities include all transactions and other events that are not defined as investing or financing activities. Operating activities generally involve producing and delivering goods and providing services. Cash flows from operating activities are generally the cash effects of transactions and other events that enter into the determination of net income.

Specific Considerations

  • Changes in a parent’s ownership interest while the parent retains its controlling financial interest in its subsidiary should be accounted for as equity transactions (investments by owners and distributions to owners acting in their capacity as owners). Accordingly, payments to acquire noncontrolling interests in a subsidiary, or those associated with the sale of noncontrolling interests in a subsidiary, should be classified as financing activities in the statement of cash flows.
  • An entity that actively and frequently purchases, sells, or trades equity securities, intending to sell them in the near term (e.g., hours or days) to generate short-term profits, would generally present such cash flow activity as operating activities; otherwise, presentation within investing activities would generally be required.
  • When an entity pays for capital expenditures or operating expenses before the reimbursement of government grant monies, it should present the receipt of the government grant in the statement of cash flows in a manner consistent with the presentation of the related cash outflow. For example, a government grant that is intended to reimburse an entity for qualifying operating expenses would be presented in the statement of cash flows as an operating activity if the grant was received after the operating expenses were incurred.
  • When an entity receives the government grant before incurring the related capital or operating expenses, it should present the receipt of the government grant as a financing cash inflow in the statement of cash flows.
  • Lease payments made to repay a finance lease liability should be classified as follows: (1) the principal portion of the payments as cash outflows from financing activities and (2) the interest portion of the payments as cash outflows from operating activities.
  • Cash flows related to the purchases and sales of businesses; property, plant, and equipment; and other productive assets are presented as investing activities in the statement of cash flows. In a business combination, all cash paid to purchase the business is presented as a single line item in the statement of cash flows, net of any cash acquired.
  • Acquisition-related costs such as advisory, legal, accounting, valuation, and professional and consulting fees in a business combination should be reflected as operating cash outflows in the statement of cash flows.
  • The effects of exchange rate changes on cash should be shown as a separate line item in the statement of cash flows as part of the reconciliation of beginning and ending cash balances.