Cash from Debt

Category

Cash Flow

Units

Currency

US-GAAP elements

ProceedsFromIssuanceOfDebt

Reference

ASC 230, Statement of Cash Flows (financing activities)

Source

Reported in SEC EDGAR filings (US-GAAP XBRL taxonomy)

Cash from debt is the total cash a company received from new borrowings during a period, including both long-term debt, such as bonds, notes, and term loans, and short-term debt, such as commercial paper and draws on credit lines. It is a gross inflow in the financing section of the cash flow statement.

It shows only money borrowed, not money repaid. To see whether total debt went up or down, set it against repayments of debt.

ASC 230 classifies borrowing and repaying principal as financing activities and generally requires the two to be shown gross, as separate inflow and outflow lines. The XBRL element ProceedsFromIssuanceOfDebt represents aggregate proceeds from short-term and long-term borrowings. Many companies do not report a single combined figure and instead show long-term and short-term proceeds separately, in which case this total is the sum of the two.

The amount recorded is the cash actually received, which is typically the face value of the debt less any original issue discount and, depending on presentation, less underwriting fees. Debt issuance costs paid separately are usually shown as their own financing outflow. Borrowings that never pass through the company's bank account, such as debt assumed in an acquisition or seller financing for an asset purchase, are noncash transactions and do not appear here. Short-term borrowings with maturities of three months or less may be reported net of repayments under ASC 230, which can make proceeds look smaller than the actual volume of borrowing.

Large inflows here tell you the company tapped lenders during the period, but not why. Read them alongside the investing section and the debt footnote: borrowing to fund an acquisition, to refinance maturing notes, to repurchase shares, or to cover operating losses have very different implications. A company that routinely rolls over debt will show large proceeds and large repayments in the same period.