Cash & Cash Equivalents
Introduction:
Cash & cash equivalents may constitute a significant proportion of the total assets of an entity. It is the most liquid asset found within the asset category of a company 's balance sheet. It is an important criterion to evaluate the liquidity and the short term solvency of a business venture. Liquidity and short term solvency means the ability of the business to pay its short term liabilities. Inability to pay-off short term liabilities affects its credibility and credit rating. The amount of cash and cash equivalents also shows the ability of the organization to grow and seize any investment opportunity to expand inorganically.
An important feature of cash & cash equivalents which has a
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Cash equivalents are therefore,
• of short term maturities (say three months or less), and
• held for meeting short-term cash commitments (e.g. Government securities, Treasury Bills, Preference shares, etc., carrying maturity within three months from acquisition) – rather than for investments or other purposes.
Investments in shares are excluded from cash equivalents unless they are, in substance, cash equivalents; for example, preference shares of a company acquired shortly before their specified redemption date (provided there is only an insignificant risk of failure of the company to repay the amount at maturity).
There is a difference in the definition of Cash equivalents as per AS 3 Cash flow Statements and as per Revised Schedule VI.
(i) Difference:
As per AS 3 ‘Cash Flow Statements’, deposits with original maturity of three months or less only should be classified as cash equivalents. Further, balances with banks to the extent held as margin money or security against the borrowings, guarantees, other commitments are neither in the nature of demand deposits nor readily available for use by the company and accordingly, do not meet the definition of cash equivalents.
(ii) Resolution of the above difference as per the Exposure Draft on Guidance Note to the
Revised Schedule VI to the Companies Act, 1956:
The requirements of the Accounting Standards would prevail over the
Liquidity is important for any firm as it is an assessment of the ability to pay its' liabilities in the short term. There are two main liquidity ratios: the current and the quick ratio. The current ratios divides the current assets by the current liabilities to assess how many times the current assets can pay the current liabilities (Elliott and Elliott, 2011). Traditional ratios are usually in the region of 1.5, but this may vary depending on the industry and nature of the business (Elliott and Elliott, 2011). The current ratio is shown in table 1.
| (TCO D) The basis for classifying assets as current or noncurrent is conversion to cash within
The statement of cash flows explains the change during the period in cash and cash equivalents. Cash includes currency on hand and demand deposits. Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are readily convertible to cash (Flight. 2006). Because of this there are two recommendations for Tyva.
2. For the tax year 2004, is SK eligible to switch from the accrual to cash method of accounting under Rev. Proc. 2002-28?
Working capital is the money that a company has after paying off its current liabilities and with which it can finance its operating and working capital requirements. The higher a number the better a company is able to pay off its debt and have cash for meeting its financial obligations. The current ratio is used to gauge a company 's ability to pay back its short-term liabilities (debt and payables) with its short-term assets (cash, inventory, receivables). The higher the current ratio, the more capable the company is of paying its obligations. A ratio under 1 suggests that the company would be unable to pay off its obligations if they came due at that point. The current ratio denotes the efficiency of a company 's operating cycle or its ability to turn its products into cash, which is a key requirement for business success. Quick ratio is an indicator of a company 's short-term liquidity. The quick ratio measures a company 's ability to meet its short-term obligations with its most liquid assets, essentially cash and cash equivalents. The higher the quick ratio, the better the financial position of the company in terms of its ability to meet its liabilities.
Debt securities included under this topic include any investment that would be considered a loan to a company, municipality or the government and its agencies. These include corporate or municipal bonds and U.S. Treasury securities and other instruments expressly stated within the codification. Equity securities covered under this section must have an easily attainable market value and include corporate stock, U.S. Treasury securities, and business investments greater than 20%. In this case, the code will dictate the method of accounting to be used as well as financial statement presentation. (GAAP) (FASB ASC 320-10-05-2, 2016).
Items that are known monies of the company that have not been paid such as the salary for employees or taxes and deferred or unearned
Require officers who have borrowed money from the company to repay the amounts owed at December 31. This would convert into cash the “notes receivable from officers,” which now appear in the balance sheet as noncurrent assets. The loans could be renewed immediately after year-end.
Note 3 touches on the category of cash and cash equivalents. Some of the cash equivalents are "available for sale securities." These include agency obligations ($20 million), commercial paper ($87 million), corporate debt securities ($78 million), government treasury securities ($606 million) and certificates of deposit ($64 million). In addition, the balance sheet shows $1.1886 billion in cash. There are stated at fair market value, which if it cannot be determined on the open market is estimated. The company values auction rate securities using an internally-developed valuation model. The company also notes that some of the "available for sale" securities are longer-term in
firm’s financing, for example, issuing or repurchasing stock and borrowing or repaying loans. It also
Liquidity is an important factor in financial statement analysis since an entity that can not meet its short term obligations may be forced into liquidation. The focus of this aspect of analysis is on working capital, or some computer of working capital.
The liquidity position of a company can be evaluated using several ratios which evaluate short-term assets and liabilities and a firm’s ability to settle short-term debts (Gibson, 2011). These ratios can provide insight into a firm’s ability to repay its debts in the short term (Gibson, 2011). In turn they suggest a firm’s capacity for debt-satisfying capabilities into the future (Gibson, 2011). This paper will use financial statement data as cited in Gibson (2011) from 3M Company (3M) to better understand liquidity measures to evaluate a firm’s total liquidity position. The following paper will focus on various liquidity calculations, their meaning, and their interpretation relative to 3M. Finally, an overall view of 3M’s liquidity
These ratios help company in determining its capability to pay short-term debts. Liquidity ratios inform about, how quickly a firm can obtain cash by liquidating its current assets in order to pay its liabilities. General liquidity ratios are: current ratio and quick ratio. Current ration can be obtain by dividing company’s current assets by its’ current liabilities. Generally a current ratio of two is considered as good (Cleverley et al., 2011). Quick ratio also known as acid test determines company’s liabilities that need to be fulfilled on urgent basis. Quick ratio can be obtained by dividing quick assets by current liabilities. Quick ratio is considered as stricter because it excludes inventories from current assets. Generally a quick ratio of 1:1 is considered as good for the company. Higher quick
The financial statements included tend to combine cash and marketable securities into a category labeled “cash and cash equivalents”. If the cash ratio is recalculated using this value instead of simply cash than the ratio improves to 1.10, which shows much stronger liquidity capabilities.