Cash flow from operating activities vs. profit
For investors, it's important to understand the difference between cash flow from operating activities and profit. They do seem a lot alike, and for good reason. Essentially, CFO is a component of profit, but it's not the whole story.
Profit is what's left after all the expenses have been paid -- that includes things that would fall under other cash flow categories, like paying loan payments or dividends. CFO by itself is just the net direction that money is flowing between the company and the company's customers.
So, where profit will tell you how much money a company has made or lost, CFO tells you what direction cash is flowing (positive or negative) in relation to customer-centric activities. CFO, then, is how much you're spending on making coffee for your customer, for example, vs. how much customers are paying for the end product. It doesn't include other investments the company is making or other types of financial activities, like stock offerings.