What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Accenture (ACN) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q2 2026, Accenture generated $13.18B of operating cash flow and $12.58B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 95.4% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Accenture (ACN) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Accenture's shareholder returns for TTM through Q2 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Accenture (ACN) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$13.18B

Capex

−$600.41M

Free Cash Flow

$12.58B

FCF Margin

+95.4%

Cash flow waterfall for Accenture (ACN) — TTM through Q2 2026

Free cash flow: $12.58B

Cash flow breakdown for Accenture (ACN) — TTM through Q2 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$13.18B	$13.18B
Capital Expenditure	−$600.41M	$12.58B
Free Cash Flow	$12.58B	$12.58B
Acquisitions	−$3.66B	$8.92B
Other Investing	$39.59M	$8.96B
Share Buybacks	−$5.67B	$3.29B
Dividends Paid	−$3.94B	−$643.97M
Net Debt Change	−$931.88M	−$1.58B
Other Financing & FX	$2.11B	$533.64M
Net Cash Increase	$533.64M	$533.64M

Operating Cash Flow$13.18B
Capital Expenditure−$600.41M
Free Cash Flow$12.58B
Acquisitions−$3.66B
Other Investing$39.59M
Share Buybacks−$5.67B
Dividends Paid−$3.94B
Net Debt Change−$931.88M
Other Financing & FX$2.11B
Net Cash Increase$533.64M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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