Cash flow

The actual movement of money in and out of your bank account, as distinct from revenue you have earned but not been paid.

Example

You invoice $30,000 in March and get paid in June. March revenue is $30,000; March cash flow from it is zero.

Profitable companies go bankrupt from cash flow. Profit is an opinion about a period; cash is a fact about a bank account.

Accounts receivable — Money customers owe you for work already delivered.
Runway — How many months your company can keep operating before it runs out of money, at its current rate of spending.
Cash flow statement — Where cash actually came from and went, split into operating, investing and financing activities.

Business banking and payments — Bank accounts, payment processors, invoicing and reconciliation. Unglamorous, and it decides whether you can actually collect money. (12 min)
Debt and non-dilutive funding — Venture debt, revenue-based financing, grants and invoice finance. Money that does not cost equity — and does cost something else. (12 min)
Producing your own P&L and cash view — Turning categorised transactions into the two reports you will actually use, and the six numbers you should be able to recite from memory. (14 min)
Localisation, currency and pricing — Translation is the smallest part. Currency, payment methods and local price expectations matter more. (12 min)
Vendors, tools and recurring costs — Subscriptions accumulate silently. An annual audit routinely finds 20–30% of tool spend buying nothing. (10 min)
The words everyone assumes you know — Founder vs CEO, shareholder vs employee, customer vs user, revenue vs profit, valuation vs cash, equity vs salary. Twenty minutes here saves a lot of nodding along in meetings. (15 min)