In the financial reporting arsenal of any business, the cash flow statement holds a place of critical importance. Often overshadowed by its more famous counterparts - the income statement and balance sheet - the cash flow statement is, in many ways, a more realistic gauge of a company's financial health.

There are studies that say 82% of businesses fail because of poor cash flow or being cash poor, rather than the failure to run a profitable business. Why is this? In part is because the success of a business is too often tied to black and white things like profit and loss, operating in the red or in the black, or assets and liabilities.