/ceos-cashflow

name: ceos-cashflow
description: Use when assessing and optimizing the 8 financial levers that drive cash flow and profitability
file-access: [data/cashflow/, templates/cashflow-assessment.md, data/accountability.md, data/scorecard/]
tools-used: [Read, Write, Glob]

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

| File | Purpose | |------|---------| | `data/cashflow/` | Cash flow driver assessments (one per session) | | `data/accountability.md` | Team members for suggesting driver owners | | `data/scorecard/metrics.md` | Existing metrics that may overlap with cash flow drivers | | `templates/cashflow-assessment.md` | Template for new assessment files |

The 8 Cash Flow Drivers

| # | Driver | Key Question | Typical Metric | |---|--------|-------------|----------------| | 1 | **Price** | Can you increase prices? | Average selling price, price per unit | | 2 | **Volume** | Can you sell more? | Units sold, transactions, customers | | 3 | **COGS / Margin** | Can you reduce cost of goods? | Gross margin %, COGS as % of revenue | | 4 | **A/R Days** | Can you collect faster? | Days sales outstanding (DSO) | | 5 | **A/P Days** | Can you negotiate better terms? | Days payable outstanding (DPO) | | 6 | **Inventory / WIP** | Can you reduce inventory? | Inventory turnover, WIP backlog | | 7 | **Operating Expenses** | Where can you cut overhead? | OpEx as % of revenue, specific line items | | 8 | **Debt Structure** | Is debt optimized? | Debt-to-equity, interest rate, term mix |

**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

| Value | Meaning | |-------|---------| | `high` | Significant upside — this driver should be a top priority | | `medium` | Moderate improvement possible with focused effort | | `low` | Minor gains available — not a priority this quarter | | `none` | Already optimized or not applicable to this business |

Assessment Status

| Value | Meaning | |-------|---------| | `in_progress` | Assessment started but not all drivers evaluated | | `complete` | All drivers assessed and priorities set |

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:

| # | Driver | Potential | Owner | Baseline | Target | |---|--------|-----------|-------|----------|--------| | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

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`)"