Yet again, cash flow problems have proved the undoing of more business operations in Australia than any other cause, although "poor strategic management of business" ran a close second, according to ASIC's corporate insolvency analysis for FY 2018.Cash flow problems - either not enough coming in, or burning through what's available - have proved the undoing of more business operations in Australia than any other cause, according to ASIC's corporate insolvency analysis for FY 2018.The annual report also hints at a growing culture of overly optimistic business leaders, given the high numbers caught out for clear breaches of their obligations, such as trading while insolvent, or not paying employees' wages and superannuation.The corporate regulator's annual statistical analysis of insolvencies in Australia, based on the 7,613 external administrators' initial reports lodged for the 2017/18 year, shows the top three most commonly nominated causes of business failure (generally two per company) were:•    "inadequate cash flow or high cash use" (49 per cent of all reports);•    "poor strategic management of business" (46 per cent);•    "trading losses" (39 per cent).The civil and criminal breaches being committed by business owners and operators in FY 2018 was a feature the external administrators' reports to ASIC. There were instances of alleged misconduct in 6,577 cases, or 86 per cent of all reports lodged, with an average of three breaches per report. This amounted to more than 20,000 potential civil and criminal offences, including breaches of good faith (eg, misuse of position and information), breaches of financial record keeping obligations; "offences by officers" (such as refusal to provide the company's books to the liquidator) and insolvent trading. Of these offences reported, there were over 2600 instances where external administrators advised that they held evidence of the alleged misconduct and recommended further inquiry by ASIC, although the regulator was keen to limit its commitment."It is important to note that an external administrator's report of misconduct is an allegation and may not be substantiated by sufficient evidence to warrant action. We will not take action in every instance..." ASIC stated.One criteria is the size of the alleged breach, and there were just a handful of instances identified where companies were suspected of trading while insolvent with debts of over A$5 million, or outstanding unpaid wages of $1 million-plus.There were no direct attributions of business failures to the inability to access bank loans, although most operations seem to have come undone with an estimated deficiency of less than $500,000 (ranging from 62 to 69 per cent of companies, reverse correlation with size).