Why is cash flow important to government entities? How does an administrator plan for cash flow? What tools are available for this purpose?

Cash flow is important to government entities because:

As with non-government entities, cash flow is important to government organizations because it is required for the operations of any organization regardless of whether they are government-owned or not, for-profit or not.

The measurable difference in the cash balance of any organization from one period to the next is referred to as Cashflow. No business or entity can continue operations if they keep taking out or spending more cash than they can make.

An administrator can plan for cash flow using a Cash Flow Planner.

This can take the form of a simple excel spread sheet  with one column showing on one side all the monies that one is expecting to come in (Account Receivables) and an adjacent column showing all the monies one is expecting to pay out (Account payables).

At the bottom of the excel, you can show the bank balance.

There are specialised apps that help perform this function. An example would be Quickbooks, Planware, Cash Flow Planner, etc.

Cheers!