{"id":4127,"date":"2018-03-24T16:13:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T16:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-cash-flow\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T11:39:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T11:39:24","slug":"what-is-cash-flow","status":"publish","type":"sage_glossary","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-cash-flow\/","title":{"rendered":"What is cash flow?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Glossary definition<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat is cash flow?\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"What is cash flow?\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-cash-flow\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n<p>Cash flow is the amount of money flowing into a business (typically from things such as sales or investments) or the money flowing out of a business (typically through costs such as purchases and overheads).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A positive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/improve-your-cash-flow-10-great-tips-to-chase-late-payments\/\">cash flow<\/a> is desirable, while a negative cash flow means a business is troubled. According to entrepreneur and former Dragons&#8217; Den star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/ambition-secret-hamper\/\">Theo Paphitis<\/a>: \u201cCash flow is king. Profit is sanity. Turnover is vanity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cash flow is the amount of money flowing into a business (typically from things such as sales or investments) or the money flowing out of a business (typically through costs such as purchases and overheads). A positive cash flow is desirable, while a negative cash flow means a business is troubled. According to entrepreneur and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[135,24],"class_list":["post-4127","sage_glossary","type-sage_glossary","status-publish","hentry","tag-business-finances","tag-cash-flow"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice UK","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/4127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/sage_glossary"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/sage_glossary\/4127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-gb\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}