I sincerely hope you're not serious, some of the comments...

I sincerely hope you're not serious, some of the comments on these HC threads are astounding.

A quick accounting lesson; an income statement is calculated on an accrual basis, where a cash flow statement is done on a cash basis (suprise suprise).

What's the difference? Take an example of Company X selling its product to Customer A, with pmt required up front and ownership transferred upon delivery. For the cash flow, the operating income will be recognised when pmt is received (i.e. on a cash basis). As for the income statement, the revenue is recognised when the goods are delivered (i.e. on an accrual basis). Until then the pmt will be held on balance sheet as deferred revenue (debit cash credit, deferred revenue) until the recognition criteria (delivery) is met, then released to the P&L (debit deferred revenue, credit revenue)... all the fun accounting stuff.

Differences such as these can therefore create significant timing deviations between the two. Of course this is a pure theoretical example, it all depends on commercial pmt terms, revenue recognition criteria etc etc but hopefully you get the idea..

I hope this helps some of you, don't be the boy who cried fraud because you don't understand financial statements.