Operating Cash Flow - OCF
Categories: Accounting, Metrics
It’s the cash that operating your business...generates.
As a rough rule of thumb, you take your operating income and then add back the non-cash items…basically, depreciation and amortization. Or DA. Or "duh," if you’re an old accountant.
OCF is the actual cash coming from the operations of your company. It doesn’t include cash from (or consumed by) investing or financing activities, i.e. things like cash spent to build a new smelting factory or cash spent buying back your own stock.
And in this case, note that it does not (usually) include taxes or dividends. Net of those figures, you’d get free cash flow.
See: Cash Flow. See: EBITDA. See: Free Cash Flow. See: GAAP.