Modeling and management of power supply enterprises' cash flows

The purpose of the study is to assess the efficiency of cash flow management at power supply companies of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. A methodological approach to cash flow forecasting with the use of linear and polynomial regression has been developed. The study is based on the data provided by 12 power supply companies operating in CIS member countries. Forecasting based on the generated polynomial models of multiple regression of cash flow for the power supply companies under study confirms the strong possibility of extrapolating the studied trends to future periods. Compared to the linear model, the polynomial one confirms higher values of the determination coefficients for the majority of power supply companies. The projected volumes of cash inflow, cash outflow, and net cash flows of power supply companies with the application of the described polynomial multiple regression models have a fairly high degree of approximation. The correlations between operating cash flows and outflows, between total cash inflow and outflow of the majority of power supply companies are high. The low level of synchronization between cash inflows and outflows of the companies under study is associated with the specifics of their financial and investment activities and the cash flow management policy. It has been proven that energy enterprises' financial stability significantly depends on the synchronization and uniformity of cash flows. The proposed methodological approach allows identifying enterprises by the criterion of riskiness from the standpoint of the synchronization and homogeneity of their cash flows. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.