Is net cash flow the same as profit?

No, and confusing the two is the most common mistake here. Profit is revenue minus expenses under accrual accounting. Cash flow is money in minus money out. A business can be profitable and still run out of cash if customers pay late, and it can show positive cash flow in a month it actually lost money.

Does this project future months?

No. The tool totals one period from figures you type in. It has no forecasting model, no growth assumption and no seasonality. To look forward, run it once per month with your best estimates and compare the printed results yourself.

Should I include loan principal repayments as an outflow?

Yes, if the cash left your account. This is a cash view, not an accounting one, so the full payment goes in even though only the interest portion would appear as an expense on a profit and loss statement.

What about money I set aside for taxes?

Include it as an outflow in the period you move it, and treat it as spent. Counting a tax reserve as available cash is how businesses end up short in the quarter the payment falls due.

Does it save my line items?

No. Everything lives in the page while it is open and disappears on reload. Nothing is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere, which also means you have to re-enter the rows next time or print the result before leaving.

Can I use it for personal cash flow?

Yes. The labels lean toward business, but the arithmetic is identical for a household. Rename the rows to salary, rent, groceries and so on, and the net figure means the same thing.

Cash Flow Calculator: Track Net Inflows and Outflows

Cash Flow Calculator: Track Net Inflows and OutflowsThe Cash Flow Calculator is a free browser-based tool that adds up the money entering your business and the money leaving it over a single period, then reports the difference as net cash flow. You build two lists, one of inflows and one of outflows, adding as many named rows as you need, and the tool returns total inflows, total outflows and the net figure, colour-coded so a shortfall is obvious. It measures one period at a time. It is not a forecast, it does not know when an invoice will actually be paid, and it makes no distinction between profit and cash.

What people use it for

Checking whether a good month was actually a good month

A design studio invoiced heavily in March and felt flush. Listing the real inflows, the ones that hit the bank, against payroll, rent, contractor invoices and the software stack showed a much smaller cushion than the revenue number suggested. That gap between billed and banked is the whole point of running the exercise.

Finding the outflow that quietly grew

A small agency owner enters each recurring cost on its own row rather than lumping them into one line. Seeing subscriptions, contractors and rent as separate outflows against the same total makes it obvious which one has crept up over the year, which a single combined expenses figure would have hidden entirely.

Stress-testing a hiring decision

Before adding a $4,000-a-month role, a founder runs the current period, then adds a row for the new salary and recalculates. If net cash flow goes negative on a normal month, the hire needs to wait for either committed new revenue or a financing line, and the two results printed together make that case to a partner.

Preparing figures before a bookkeeper call

Rather than arriving with a bank statement, an owner types the period into named rows and prints the summary. It takes a few minutes and turns a vague conversation about where the money went into a specific one about the three largest outflows.

How it works

List your inflows Under Inflows, name each source of money received in the period and enter its amount. Use the Add row button for as many sources as you have, and record what actually landed rather than what was invoiced.
List your outflows Do the same under Outflows for every payment made in the period, including payroll, rent, software, contractors and tax set-asides. Naming rows individually is what makes the result useful later.
Remove rows you do not need Each row has a delete button, disabled when only one row remains. Rows with an amount of zero are excluded from the totals automatically, so you can leave a placeholder in place without skewing anything.
Press Calculate Cash Flow Net cash flow appears at the top in green when positive and red when negative, with total inflows and total outflows shown underneath so you can see which side is driving the result.
Repeat for the next period The tool holds one period at a time and does not save between visits. Print or export each run before you change the numbers if you want to compare months against each other.

Worked examples

Input: Inflows: product sales $40,000 and service revenue $15,000. Outflows: payroll $22,000, rent and utilities $6,000, marketing $4,000.

Result: Total inflows $55,000, total outflows $32,000, net cash flow $23,000. A healthy month where payroll alone consumes about 40% of everything that came in.

Input: Inflows: client retainers $18,000 and a one-off project $4,500. Outflows: contractors $9,000, software $1,200, rent $2,800, quarterly tax set-aside $5,000.

Result: Total inflows $22,500, total outflows $18,000, net cash flow $4,500. Without the one-off project the month would have broken exactly even.

Input: Inflows: $12,000. Outflows: payroll $9,000, rent $3,500, insurance $1,800.

Result: Total inflows $12,000, total outflows $14,300, net cash flow negative $2,300, shown in red. The shortfall has to come from reserves or a credit line.

Frequently asked questions

Is net cash flow the same as profit?: No, and confusing the two is the most common mistake here. Profit is revenue minus expenses under accrual accounting. Cash flow is money in minus money out. A business can be profitable and still run out of cash if customers pay late, and it can show positive cash flow in a month it actually lost money.
Does this project future months?: No. The tool totals one period from figures you type in. It has no forecasting model, no growth assumption and no seasonality. To look forward, run it once per month with your best estimates and compare the printed results yourself.
Should I include loan principal repayments as an outflow?: Yes, if the cash left your account. This is a cash view, not an accounting one, so the full payment goes in even though only the interest portion would appear as an expense on a profit and loss statement.
What about money I set aside for taxes?: Include it as an outflow in the period you move it, and treat it as spent. Counting a tax reserve as available cash is how businesses end up short in the quarter the payment falls due.
Does it save my line items?: No. Everything lives in the page while it is open and disappears on reload. Nothing is uploaded, stored or sent anywhere, which also means you have to re-enter the rows next time or print the result before leaving.
Can I use it for personal cash flow?: Yes. The labels lean toward business, but the arithmetic is identical for a household. Rename the rows to salary, rent, groceries and so on, and the net figure means the same thing.

Tips

Enter what cleared the bank, not what you invoiced. The gap between the two is usually the reason a profitable month feels tight.
Give every recurring cost its own row and reuse the same names each period. Consistent naming is what makes two printed months comparable.
Add a row for a tax set-aside even if you have not moved the money yet. Seeing it as an outflow keeps you from spending it twice.
If the net figure is negative two periods in a row, stop optimising individual costs and look at whether pricing or collection terms are the real problem.

Written by Ahsan Mahmood. Last updated 2026-07-21. This calculator runs entirely in your browser and produces estimates, not tax advice.TaxEase — Cash Flow Calculator: Track Net Inflows and Outflows