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Cash Flow Picture

Written in-house · editorially graded

Every SkillsBank offering is written in-house — never scraped or crowd-sourced — and graded against a fixed editorial rubric in a separate grading step.

Dry-run test passed · Aug 19, 2026

Trigger check passed

Editorially graded · Aug 19, 2026

Builds a GAAP indirect-method Operating Cash Flow reconciliation and tie-out audit trail from a company's income statement and one or two balance sheets, producing a one-page presentation-ready PDF and a formula-linked Excel workbook with a working-capital roll-forward. Use when the user provides or pastes an income statement and balance sheet(s) and asks to derive, verify, or reconcile cash from operating activities for a monthly/quarterly close, board package, or lender packet — this covers the OCF section only, not a full three-section cash flow statement or narrative commentary.

What you get

An installable SKILL.md file for your AI assistant. Produces a PDF and an Excel workbook (.xlsx).

Works in
Claude Code · Cursor
Native — drops into .claude/skills/
Copilot · Codex · Gemini CLI
Native — reads .agents/skills/
claude.ai — web & desktop
Upload the .zip in Customize → Skills
ChatGPT
Via a Project — paste into its instructions

See it in action

A real input → output sample

Sample input
Build the OCF reconciliation for Apex Manufacturing for the nine months ended September 30, 2024, using the provided income statement and balance sheets. The reported net cash provided by operating activities was $4,550.
Sample output
Sample output produced by the Cash Flow Picture skill
Produced by an AI assistant following this skill on the sample input above.
View the full output as text
Example Output
The computed net cash provided by operating activities is $4,660, with a variance of $110 from the reported figure. The likely driver of this variance is the undisclosed depreciation and amortization (and potentially stock-based compensation) in the income statement.

Questions

What do I need to provide?

An income statement and at least one balance sheet, ideally two consecutive periods so working-capital changes can be calculated. If you have a reported operating cash flow figure or a draft OCF statement, it can use those too for tie-out comparison.

What exactly do I get?

A one-page presentation-ready PDF showing the Net Income-to-Operating-Cash-Flow bridge, plus a formula-linked Excel workbook with a working-capital roll-forward, non-cash adjustments detail, and a tie-out tab when a reported figure was available.

What happens if I'm missing some inputs, like a prior-period balance sheet?

It proceeds rather than stopping. Working-capital lines without a prior balance are marked 'Not computable' and excluded from the subtotal — never shown as a fabricated zero. A closing note lists exactly what's missing and what was done instead.

How does it handle things like debt or gains on sale?

It classifies every balance-sheet line by accounting nature: debt principal, dividends, and PP&E are excluded from the working-capital table, gains on sale are subtracted, losses are added back, and deferred tax direction follows expense vs. benefit — all per GAAP indirect-method treatment.

Will it tell me if my numbers don't tie out?

Yes, if you supply the company's reported Operating Cash Flow figure, it normalizes units and rounding, then labels the result Confirmed (rounding) or Unresolved with the dollar variance and the most likely driver visible in the build — it never calls a variance immaterial without checking.

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