Ceos Cashflow

ceos-cashflow

The 8 Cash Flow Drivers (EOS Toolbox tool #10). A facilitated workshop for leadership teams to identify and optimize the eight key financial levers that impact cash flow and profitability: Price, Volume, COGS/Margin, A/R Days, A/P Days, Inventory/WIP, Operating Expenses, and Debt Structure.

Not for: Weekly scorecard tracking (use ceos-scorecard), general issue resolution (use ceos-ids), or Rock setting (use ceos-rocks). This skill is for the structured cash flow driver assessment — a strategic conversation about financial levers.

When to Use

• "Assess our cash flow" or "8 cash flow drivers"
• "Cash flow drivers" or "financial optimization"
• "Review our financial levers" or "profitability drivers"
• "Where can we improve margins?"
• "Cash flow driver review" or "quarterly cash flow check-in"
• "Show cash flow history" or "how have our drivers changed?"

Context

Finding the CEOS Repository

Before doing anything:

1. Search upward from the current directory for a .ceos marker file
2. If not found, tell the user: "I can't find a CEOS repository. Clone it with git clone https://github.com/bradfeld/ceos.git and run ./setup.sh init."
3. If found, set CEOS_ROOT to that directory
4. Run git -C "$CEOS_ROOT" pull --ff-only to sync latest data (skip if offline or if pull fails — work with local data)

Key Files

The 8 Cash Flow Drivers

Note: Not all 8 drivers apply equally to every business. A software company may have minimal inventory. A services firm may have no COGS. The skill handles this — drivers can be marked as "none" potential when they don't apply.

Driver Improvement Potential

Assessment Status

Process

Mode: Assess

Trigger: User wants to evaluate all 8 cash flow drivers from scratch.

Step 1: Gather context

Read data/accountability.md to identify potential driver owners. If the file doesn't exist, skip owner suggestions — ask the user for each driver's owner directly.

Read data/scorecard/metrics.md (if it exists) to identify metrics already being tracked that relate to cash flow drivers. Note any overlaps — don't duplicate existing scorecard measurables.

Step 2: Walk through the 8 drivers

For each driver (1 through 8):

1. Display the driver name, key question, and typical metric from the reference table
2. If a related scorecard metric exists, note it: "Your Scorecard already tracks [metric] — you may want to reference that as your baseline."
3. Ask the user:
   • Current state: What's the current situation for this driver?
   • Improvement potential: High, medium, low, or none?
   • Baseline metric: What's the current value? (Store as a string — can be "$52K/month", "Net 30", "45 days", etc.)
   • Target metric: Where do you want this to be?
   • Owner: Who is accountable for this driver? (Suggest from accountability chart if available)
   • Notes: Any additional context?

If the user wants to skip a driver (e.g., "Inventory doesn't apply to us"), set potential to none and note "Not applicable" in current_state. Move to the next driver.

Step 3: Prioritize

After all 8 drivers are assessed, display a summary table:

Ask the user to rank their top 3-5 focus drivers. Assign priority_rank values (1 = highest priority). Drivers not in the top 3-5 get null for priority_rank.

Step 4: Create assessment file

Generate the complete file from templates/cashflow-assessment.md. Populate all frontmatter fields and body sections.

Show the complete file to the user before writing. Ask: "Save this assessment?"

Write to data/cashflow/YYYY-MM-DD.md (using today's date). If a file already exists for today, use suffix: YYYY-MM-DD-2.md.

Set frontmatter status: complete.

Step 5: Next steps

After saving, mention (but don't auto-invoke):

• "Driver improvements with high potential could become Rocks for next quarter (use ceos-rocks)"
• "Driver problems that need investigation could become Issues (use ceos-ids)"
• "Consider adding key driver metrics to your Scorecard (use ceos-scorecard)"

Mode: Review

Trigger: User wants a quarterly check-in on their prioritized cash flow drivers.

Step 1: Load assessments

Read all files from data/cashflow/ via Glob. Parse YAML frontmatter. Sort by date (newest first).

If no assessments exist: "No cash flow assessments found. Run an assessment first to establish your baseline."

Step 2: Find the latest assessment

Display the most recent completed assessment's prioritized drivers (those with priority_rank set):

Step 3: Collect current values

For each prioritized driver, ask: "What's the current value for [Driver]? (Baseline was [baseline], target is [target])"

Step 4: Display progress

Direction values:

• Improving — Moving toward target
• Stalling — No change or very minor movement
• Regressing — Moving away from target
• Target hit — Current meets or exceeds target

Step 5: Flag and suggest

For stalling or regressing drivers, suggest:

• "Consider creating an Issue to investigate why [Driver] is stalling (use ceos-ids)"
• "A focused Rock on [Driver] improvement could help (use ceos-rocks)"

Step 6: Save review (optional)

Ask if the user wants to save this review as a new assessment. If yes, create a new file capturing the current state as the new baseline. This becomes the comparison point for the next review.

Mode: History

Trigger: User wants to see cash flow driver trends over time.

Step 1: Load all assessments

Read all files from data/cashflow/ via Glob. Parse YAML frontmatter. Sort by date (oldest first).

If no assessments exist: "No cash flow assessments found yet."

If only one assessment: Display it, noting "Only one assessment on record. Run another assessment later to see trends."

Step 2: Assessment timeline

Step 3: Per-driver trends

For each driver that has been prioritized in at least one assessment:

Price:  high → medium → low  (improving — was a top priority, now optimized)
A/R Days:  high → high → medium  (improving slowly — still needs attention)
OpEx:  medium → high → high  (worsening — consider escalating to an Issue)

Step 4: Insights

• Which drivers have been consistently prioritized (may need a Rock)
• Which drivers improved and were deprioritized (success stories)
• Which drivers have worsened (may need an IDS investigation)

Step 5: Drill-down

Offer: "Would you like to see the full details of any specific assessment?"

If yes, display the complete assessment file.

Output Format

Assess Mode Summary

After completing the assessment, display:

Cash Flow Assessment — YYYY-MM-DD

8 Drivers Assessed:
  High potential:   [N] drivers
  Medium potential:  [N] drivers
  Low potential:     [N] drivers
  Not applicable:    [N] drivers

Top Priorities:
  1. [Driver] — [Baseline] → [Target] (Owner: [Name])
  2. [Driver] — [Baseline] → [Target] (Owner: [Name])
  3. [Driver] — [Baseline] → [Target] (Owner: [Name])

Saved to: data/cashflow/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Review Mode Summary

Cash Flow Review — YYYY-MM-DD

Comparing to assessment from [prior date]:

  Improving:  [N] drivers
  Stalling:   [N] drivers
  Regressing: [N] drivers
  Target hit: [N] drivers

[Table of prioritized drivers with progress]

History Mode Summary

Cash Flow History — [N] assessments

First assessment: YYYY-MM-DD
Latest assessment: YYYY-MM-DD

[Assessment timeline table]
[Per-driver trend arrows]

Guardrails

• Always show the complete file before writing. Never save an assessment without the user seeing and approving the full content.
• Don't auto-invoke skills. When assessment results suggest creating Rocks, Issues, or Scorecard metrics, mention the option but let the user decide. Say "Would you like to create a Rock for this?" rather than doing it automatically.
• Sensitive data warning. On first use in a session, remind the user: "Cash flow assessments contain sensitive financial information (revenue targets, cost structures, debt details). Ensure this repository is private."
• Don't prescribe financial strategies. This is a facilitation guide, not financial advice. Present the framework and record the team's decisions. Don't suggest specific pricing strategies, cost-cutting measures, or debt restructuring approaches.
• One full assessment per session. Walking through all 8 drivers is a substantial conversation. Don't rush — each driver deserves focused discussion.
• Metrics are strings, not numbers. Financial values come in many formats ($52K, 45 days, Net 30, 35% of revenue). Store them as human-readable strings. The skill facilitates comparison through display, not computation.

Integration Notes

Accountability Chart (Read)

• Direction: Read
• What data: data/accountability.md
• Purpose: Suggest driver owners from the leadership team's seat assignments. Each driver should be owned by the person whose seat most closely relates to that financial lever.

Scorecard (Read)

• Direction: Read
• What data: data/scorecard/metrics.md
• Purpose: Cross-reference existing scorecard metrics with the 8 drivers. If a team already tracks "Weekly Revenue" on the scorecard, that overlaps with the Volume and Price drivers. Avoid duplicating metrics — reference existing ones.

Rocks (Related)

• Direction: Related (suggest, don't write)
• What data: N/A
• Purpose: High-potential driver improvements can become quarterly Rocks. After assessment, suggest the user create Rocks for their top priorities via ceos-rocks.

IDS (Related)

• Direction: Related (suggest, don't write)
• What data: N/A
• Purpose: Stalling or regressing drivers may need root-cause investigation. Suggest creating Issues via ceos-ids for drivers that aren't improving despite being prioritized.

Write Principle: Only ceos-cashflow writes to data/cashflow/. Other skills may reference cash flow assessments for financial context.