This paper seeks to examine the importance of working capital to a business. By definition, in order for a business to conduct its daily operations, such as payment of wages, the purchase of raw materials, it requires funds which are referred to a, working capital which also covers overhead costs. Companies aspire to maintain their cash at a desirable level in order to offset liabilities on maturity and the availability of production materials require by the business to provide customers’ needs indicates the importance of working capital. Working capital can be sub-divided into two areas, that is, regular working capital – it provides a steady base for overall business objectives; and short-term working capital that is used to facilitate the day-to-day business operations. There are various sources of finance for working capital which include retained earnings, credit from suppliers, and long-term loans from financial institutions or proceeds from sale of assets. Generally, investment in working capital could be grouped into permanent and variable. Permanent investment in working is the portion of working capital kept to sustain the level of sales which is not affected by seasonality while variable working capital is the additional working capital required during periods of fluctuations in sales. It is expected the permanent working capital would be financed by long term capital while variable working capital is financed by short term capital. According to (Merchant), a
For this week’s reflection, please write three complete and well composed paragraphs and, in your own words (do not quote from a book or website) explain what working capital is and why it is important for a business. As an example, describe a business that operates where you live and describe how knowing what the working capital of that company would be useful to the business leaders of that company and to outside investors.
Working capital management is the management of short-term investment in the organization. This mainly deals with the most liquid assets of an organization. Capital structure management is a method to investigate how a firm finance its overall operations and growth by keeping its operations as profitable and risk-free as possible.
One of the most important parts of a business is the financial management. Each and every other company always strives to have the best management when it comes to its finances. Most organizations have come up with plans and marketing strategies. This is due to the fact tat when companies finances are poorly managed then definitely the whole company is likely to be in trouble or even come down. The financial techniques and principles in most cases comprise of quite a number of aspect for instance those that we intend to look at in this paper-the financial reporting. This will basically comprise of the quality of data and information that the company produced to some of the various stakeholders. Other than that, the paper will also analyze the financial position and performance of the organization using accounting ratios. Another important aspect of financial principles is costing. This basically entails the cost of producing goods and services in the company and how it generally affects the overall performance of the company. The paper will also delve into how important costs in the pricing strategy of the business are. It will further come up with a costing and pricing system that can help the company improve. Last but not least, we focus on the company's budgets and budgetary control. Here there are very important areas that have to be looked into, for
The decline of inventory turnover presents the incresed possibility of inventory obsolescence which is likely to be assessed as higher business risk. In debts to equity part, the ratio in current year is much higher than that of preceeding year, which means the extent of use of debt in financing company is much higher than before. Pinnacle has used most of its borrowing capacity and has little cushion for addional debt.This action brought high business risk to Pinnacle. In addition, Pinnacle puchase more inventory in current year that that of preceeding year, and net sales are increasing also compared previous year. However, the net income is decreased significantly. These changes show expenses (maybe direct or indirect) have increased dramaticly. The company uses more expensive materials and labors to manufacure and sell products.
Even though most of these expenses are not of big magnitude their value can add up and affect the company’s finances. Some of these items are accrued time for employees, bonuses, benefits, utilities, improvements and taxes. Some additional sources of working capital include; cash reserves, profits, equity loans, line of credit, and long term loans.
Understanding the flow of cash within an organization is critical to knowing the health of an organization. Without this understanding, a business may run into a situation where even though they are profitable, they may not have enough cash on hand to meet their obligations. This paper will look at the case study Eat at My Restaurant – Cash Flow (Gibson, 2013) and will analyze the difference between net cash provided by operating activities and net income and determine which a better indicator of long-term profitability is. It will then provide an analysis of the cash flow
George 's Train Shop is a family owned business that focuses on the sales and repairs of train toys. George is running a profitable business, but as he is aware of my MBA Managerial Finance class, he has asked for advice on his working capital practices. Although George is currently enjoying the benefits of a profitable business, there are opportunities for him to expand his business ventures. This first starts by dissecting degree of aggressiveness in working capital practices, current capital budgeting practices, and areas where he can improve in both arenas. In addition, careful management of the company 's cash flow will
Based on information given, we established the free cash flows from operations for Torrington, for the period 1999 to 2007. We made the assumption that net working capital was 7% of sales for Torrington, based on historic patterns. From this assumption, we found “Change in Net Working Capital” for the selected years. Next, we chose a value for “Capital Expenditures”, again based on historic patterns. From this we computed the “Free Cash Flows to the Firm”.
On the other hand, the company has been growing constantly. In deed, according to the net income estimation for 2007 (see Table 7) the company increases its profits $25 thousand dollars more than the previous year. This is an evidence of how the company is been management and of its willing to grow year after year. Nevertheless, the first quarter of 2007 the working capital only has increased by $7 thousand dollars, which is the difference between the current assets and current liabilities but the importance of this is that according to the rotation on receivables and payable accounts, shown in Table 5 and 10, leads us to the conclusion that the company will have to pay its suppliers
Alan Litchman and Laura B. Trust, Co-Presidents of Finagle a Bagel, own a bagel business in Boston (Parrino, Kidwell, Bates, 2012). Alan and Laura met in business school and after gaining business experience in other industries they purchased the bagel business with the intent of growing it as much as possible. They have two primary target markets: 1) retail stores and 2) wholesale accounts with large institutions. In this paper, we will briefly discuss a few of the strategies they used to manage their working capital.
Similarly, the working capital ratio is a metric that is utilized for the purpose of appraising the liquidity position of a commercial entity (Robinson). A review of the working capital of the two companies confirms that they had a positive working capital in 2014, but a negative one in 2015 (Yahoo.com). The outcome suggests that the liquidity position of the organization has deteriorated. Thus, the two commercial entities are likely to experience challenges with respect to meeting short-term obligations.
Parrino, R., Kidwell, D. S, & Bates, T. W. (2012: Concept Review Video: Working Capital Management
This assignment consists of a profitable business ran by a man name “George.” George is aware that we are in a MBA Managerial Finance class and he needs advice on his working capital practices. George would like the answers to the following:
Many organizations have maximized the use of cash on hand by effective cash management techniques and the use of short-term financing. This paper will discuss various cash management techniques and short-term financing methods used by organizations.
In this paper I’ll analyze the fundamental differences between the working capital structures and components for Google and Oracle, and speculate upon the main reasons why such differences exist; how each company could improve its working capital positions. As a Wall Street Analyst who has to recommend one of the companies as an investment to a company’s clients; based solely on that company’s working capital; as an Investment Banker who has to recommend loaning a substantial amount of capital to one company based solely on that company’s working capital.