Project Cash Flow

Contents 1 Definition 2 References

Cash flows are used throughout business and in project management as a means of reporting income and expenditure.

Definition

Pilcher (1994) describes a cash flow as indicating“movements of cash, either into or out of the project account”, and explains that “income or receipts are known as positive cash flows and expenditure or payments are known as negative cash flows”. In his definition of cash flows Speed (1997) adds one other major component of a cash flow; time. He describes a cash flow as the "the schedule of payments over a time period that an owner has to make in order to build a typical project”

Cash flows not only record current income and expenditure but also “attempt to show the anticipated inflow and outflow of money for a business” (Ashworth 2002).

References

• Ashworth, A. 2002, Pre-Contract Studies: Development Economics, Tendering and Estimating, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK.
• Pilcher, R. 1994, Project Cost Control in Construction, Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, UK.
• Speed, W. 1997, 'Cash Flow Analysis', in The Engineer's Cost Handbook: Tools for Managing Project Costs, R. Westney (ed.), Marcel Dekker, New York, USA.