Calculate Working Capital

If a company takes all of its short-term assets (e.g. cash in the bank, receivables invoices, stock, etc) and pays all its short-term liabilities (e.g. suppliers, staff, etc) the remaining balance is their working capital position.  If the working capital position is positive, it is more than likely that the company is adequately capitalised and is self sufficient.  If however, the working capital position is negative, then the company needs to make up the difference by borrowing money or using some other source of working capital.  To calculate the working capital of a business, simply subtract its Current Liabilities from its Current Assets.

Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities

Knowing the working capital of a business will help to avoid unnecessary financial strain on the company.  Companies with insufficient working capital will invariably delay payments to suppliers, fail to pay staff salaries, delay tax payments and may ultimately lead to business failure and/or closure.   A useful measurement of the financial health of a business is its working capital ratio.  In a financially stable business, the working capital ratio will be above 2.

Working Capital Ratio = Current Assets / Current Liabilities

For example, a company with current assets of 100,000 and current liabilities of 40,000 has working capital of 60,000 and its working capital ratio is 2.5. Working capital ratios below 2 are an indication that there may be a potential financial problem.  A company with a working capital ratios below 2 needs to address the issue swiftly by borrowing money or using some other source of working capital.

Finding your Current Assets & Current Liabilities
Go to your accounts system and print your Balance Sheet, or ask your accountant for a recent Balance Sheet. Current Assets is a standard heading on most Balance Sheets. There may be a Current Liabilities heading and if not, there should be a heading: Creditors – amount falling due within one year and this is your Current Liabilities.

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Today Credebt Exchange® completed its initial Institutional Investor Roadshow in London.  From an initial panel of six UK banks, presentations were made to three.  The primary focus of the presentation was on risk and controls.  Initial reaction was positive with offers from two of the three banks expected before…

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How to use risk to your advantage

As explained in the previous article “It’s all about Risk…” you’ll now understand that larger organisations get preferential treatment from banks.  That’s the status quo and isn’t likely to change any time soon.  So what can you do to improve the banks perception of your business, so that you achieve ‘next best’ status?

The answer is to make sure you present your business as the ‘next best’ lowest possible risk.  This means you have to remove all possible negative ‘what if’ scenarios, wherever you can. What if these top two customers cancel their business with you? What if your cost of supplies increases unexpectedly?  What if a senior member of staff leaves? What if demand in your market declines suddenly?  And so on…

The more you think about all the risks that undermines the integrity and viability of your business, then you’re thinking like a banker.  Banks don’t like risk.  If you have given sufficient thought to the removal or reaction to risk, then you’re making it easier for them to lend to you.

It’s all about Risk

Once you understand risk, then you’ll begin to understand banks and how banking works.  Banks, investors, shareholders, managers, financial markets, brokers and other investment/lending professionals all learn about risk.  That’s not to say they necessarily understand risk in all its guises, but they must understand the principal that high risk is bad risk.

Think of it like parenting. Does a responsible parent leave a young child with the wild teenager next door, or do they leave the child with a mature, responsible adult? If you were a bank, who would you rather lend money to: an established, well managed, large company or the young start-up business (notice how inverting this speaks volumes: ‘up-start’)?

As a bank manager, if you are paid the same salary for lending to large companies as you were for lending to the up-starts (sorry, start-up), but were only promoted when the loan was repaid, who would you lend too?

Unless you’re being obstinate, the answer’s simple: the established, well managed, large company is less risky than the young start-up.  So they get the money first (and in most cases, at much lower cost too). Only after the large corporates market is satisfied, will banks look to the micro-medium sized, more risky market.

Low risk, high volume lending is more efficient and ‘safer’ than almost every type of other riskier lending to the micro-medium sized business.  That’s a simple fact of banking and isn’t likely to change any time soon.  So don’t get angry with your bank, if you were in their shoes, you’d probably use the same principal: low risk

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