QuickBooks Statement of Cash Flows: Run a Cash Flow Report

Last updated August 2026.

The QuickBooks statement of cash flows is at Reports > Standard > Business overview > Statement of Cash Flows in QuickBooks Online, and at Reports > Company & Financial > Statement of Cash Flows in QuickBooks Desktop. It explains the change in your cash balance across a date range by sorting every movement into operating, investing and financing activities.

It is the least read of the three financial statements and the one that answers the question owners actually ask out loud: the profit and loss says we made $60,000, so where is it? The profit and loss will never answer that, because the things that quietly drain a bank account, loan principal, owner draws, credit card paydowns and equipment purchases, do not appear on it at all. The cash flow statement exists specifically to show them.

Before you run it, one warning that saves a lot of confusion. QuickBooks builds this report on an accrual basis, and there is no meaningful cash basis version of it. People assume a report with the word cash in the title must be a cash basis report and then spend an afternoon trying to work out why it disagrees with the bank. It is not, and it will.

The three sections, and what QuickBooks puts in each

Every dollar that moved in or out of your cash accounts lands in exactly one of three buckets. The report totals them, adds the cash you started the period with, and arrives at the cash you ended with. If that ending figure matches the sum of your bank account balances on the balance sheet, the report is internally consistent.

The shape of those three numbers tells you more than any single one of them. Positive operating cash with negative investing cash is a healthy growing business buying equipment out of its own earnings. Negative operating cash propped up by positive financing cash is a business staying alive on loans and owner injections, which is fine for a season and dangerous as a pattern.

Why QuickBooks uses the indirect method

There are two ways to build the operating section. The direct method lists actual cash receipts and payments. The indirect method starts with net income from the profit and loss and then adjusts it back into cash. QuickBooks uses the indirect method, which is why the very first line of the report is net income rather than money received from customers.

The adjustments underneath it are doing one job: undoing accrual accounting. If accounts receivable grew by $8,000 during the period, you invoiced $8,000 more than you collected, so the report subtracts it. If accounts payable grew by $5,000, you booked expenses you have not paid yet, so it adds it back. Depreciation gets added back because it reduced net income without any money leaving.

The choice of method only ever affects the operating section. Investing and financing look identical either way. That is worth knowing if an accountant or a lender asks for a direct method statement, because it means the work is confined to one part of the report rather than a rebuild of the whole thing.

Why the statement of cash flows does not match your bank balance

Four reasons, in rough order of how often they turn out to be the answer.

• It is accrual, and you think in cash. The report starts from accrual net income. It reconciles to cash by the end, but every intermediate number is an accrual number.
• Your definition of cash is wider than you think. QuickBooks treats every bank account plus undeposited funds as cash for this report. If a deposit is sitting in Undeposited Funds it counts as cash here and is not in the bank.
• The period is wrong. A cash flow statement covers a range. Comparing it to today's bank balance compares a period to a moment.
• Transactions are missing. Cash that never got imported cannot appear. This is the big one and it is invisible on the report itself.

Work the last one first, because the other three are reading errors and that one is a data hole. Reconcile every bank and credit card account through the end of the period. If an account has months with no activity because the feed never reached that far back, or because the account is closed, upload the PDF statement to the converter at the top of this page, import the .qbo file, and categorize the rows. The cash flow statement is built on transactions, and it cannot report on ones that were never entered.

How the three financial statements fit together

The clearest way to see what the cash flow statement adds is to put the same six events through all three reports.

Read across any row and the gap between profit and cash stops being mysterious. A business can invoice $200,000, collect $120,000 of it, pay $40,000 of loan principal and buy a $30,000 truck, and report a healthy profit while the bank account went backwards. Every one of those facts is on the QuickBooks balance sheet or the cash flow statement, and none of them are on the profit and loss.

Running it by month, and exporting it

Set the report period to the full year, then set Display columns by to Months. One column per month turns the report from a summary into a trend, and a business with any seasonality learns more from twelve columns than from one. The same dropdown offers quarters, and Desktop has the equivalent under Customize Report on the Display tab.

Export with the toolbar icon: Excel if someone is going to work with the numbers, PDF if it is going to a lender or a board. If the report is heading into an investor update or a board pack, exporting to PDF and then turning the report into a presentation is faster than rebuilding the figures by hand in slides, and it keeps the numbers tied to what QuickBooks actually produced.

Save the customization once you have the columns and the period right. It reopens under the Custom reports tab with your settings intact, which matters for a report you run every month and would otherwise rebuild every month.

When the report shows something that is obviously not cash

Journal entries are the usual explanation. A journal entry posted directly to a bank or credit card account is treated as a cash movement by this report, whether or not any money moved, because QuickBooks has no way to know your intent. Depreciation entries, accrual reversals and reclassification entries all show up if they touch a cash account.

If a line looks wrong, click it. The report drills through to the transactions behind the figure, and the offender is usually a journal entry that should have been posted to an accrual account instead of the bank account. Fixing the entry fixes the report; there is no setting to suppress it.

The other frequent surprise is a large unexplained figure in operating activities that turns out to be the change in credit card balances. Running a card up is a source of cash in the period and paying it down is a use of cash, which is arithmetically correct and still catches people out the first time they see it.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the statement of cash flows in QuickBooks Online?

Under Reports in the left navigation, on the Standard tab, in the Business overview group alongside the Profit and Loss and the Balance Sheet. Typing cash into the report search box gets you there faster. Set the date range, then select Run report.

Can I run the statement of cash flows on a cash basis in QuickBooks?

No, not in any meaningful sense. QuickBooks builds this report on an accrual basis and defaults to it regardless of your company's accounting method setting. The report reconciles accrual net income to the change in cash, so an accrual starting point is structural rather than a preference you can switch off.

Does QuickBooks use the direct or indirect method for cash flow?

The indirect method. The operating section begins with net income and then adds back non cash items like depreciation and adjusts for changes in receivables, payables and other working capital accounts. QuickBooks does not ship a direct method version of the report, so a direct method statement has to be built outside QuickBooks.

Why is my net income different from my cash flow?

Because net income is measured on accrual rules and cash is measured by what moved. Unpaid invoices raise income without raising cash, loan principal and owner draws lower cash without lowering income, and buying equipment lowers cash without lowering income until depreciation catches up. The operating section of the cash flow statement lists the specific differences.

How do I run a statement of cash flows in QuickBooks Desktop?

Go to Reports > Company & Financial > Statement of Cash Flows on the top menu bar. Use Customize Report to change the date range and column layout, and Ctrl+M to memorize the customized version. Desktop also lets you reassign which accounts belong to which section under Edit > Preferences > Reports & Graphs > Company Preferences > Classify Cash.

Does QuickBooks Simple Start include the statement of cash flows?

Yes. The Statement of Cash Flows is a standard report on every QuickBooks Online plan, including Simple Start, next to the profit and loss and the balance sheet. Higher plans add class and location columns and budget comparisons, but the cash flow report itself is the same on all of them.

What period should I run the statement of cash flows for?

Match it to whatever period you are explaining. Monthly columns across a full year are the most useful default because they show seasonality and catch the month something changed. For a lender or an investor, run the full fiscal year with a prior year comparison, since a single period gives no context.

Getting a cash flow statement you can rely on

Everything above assumes the transactions are in QuickBooks. That assumption is wrong more often than people expect, and this report hides the problem better than the other two, because missing cash movements do not leave a gap on the page. They just make the totals smaller.

Reconcile every bank and credit card account through the end of the period before you run it. Where an account has months that never came through the feed, whether the feed only reached back ninety days, the bank changed its login, or the account is closed and cannot be connected at all, convert the PDF statements with the tool at the top of this page and import the .qbo file. Then categorize the For review list, reconcile, and run the report. Next steps: the QuickBooks balance sheet, running reports in QuickBooks, and importing a bank statement into QuickBooks Online.