Drawing Cash Flow Diagrams with a Spreadsheet.

One simple way to draw cash flow diagrams with "arrows" proportional to the size of the cash flows is to use a spreadsheet to draw a stacked bar chart. The data for the cash flows is entered, as shown in the table part of Figure 2-8. Tomake a quick graph, select cells B1 to D8, which are the three columns of the cash flow.Then select the graph menu and choose column chart and select the stack option. Except for labeling axes (using the cells for year 0 to year 6), choosing the scale for the y axis, and adding titles, the cash flowdiagram is done. Refer to the appendix for a review of basic spreadsheet use. (Note: a bar chart labels
periods rather than using an x axis with arrows at times 0, 1, 2 ...)

FIGURE 2-8 Example of cash flow diagram in spreadsheets.