Professional Documents
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Working Capital Management and Short
Working Capital Management and Short
Working Capital Management – the administration and control of working capital (i.e., current assets) and current
liabilities to achieve a balance between profitability and risk that contributes positively to the firm’s value.
Working Capital (Current Assets) – assets that are reasonably expected to be realized in cash or consumed or sold
during the normal operating cycle of the business. They include cash, marketable securities, receivables and
inventory.
Temporary (Seasonal) Current Assets – current assets that fluctuate with the firm’s operational needs.
Permanent Current Assets – the portion of the company’s current assets required to maintain the firm’s daily
operations. It is the minimum level of current assets required if the firm is to continue its operations.
Current Liabilities – liabilities that are expected to be liquidated within one business cycle through the use of working
capital or incurrence of other current liabilities.
1. Working capital comprises a large portion of the firm’s total assets. Although the level of working capital varies
widely among different industries, firms in manufacturing and trading industries more often than not, keep more
than half of their assets in current assets.
2. The financial manager has considerable responsibility and control in managing the level of current assets and
current liabilities.
3. Working capital management directly affects the firm’s long-term growth and survival because higher levels of
current assets are needed to support production and sales growth.
4. Liquidity and profitability are likewise directly affected by working capital management.
1. Nature of Operations
2. Volume of Sales
3. Variation of Cash Flows
4. Operating Cycle Periods
Operating Cycle – consists of the time period between the procurement of inventory of raw materials and turns them into
finished goods (for manufacturing concerns), sell them and receive payment for them.
Formula:
Days Sales in Inventory
Operating Cycle = (or Inventory Conversion + Average Collection Period
Period)
Cash Conversion Cycle – the length of time it takes for the initial cash outflows for goods and services to be
realized as cash inflows from sales.
Formula:
Average Payment Period
Cash Conversion Cycle = Operating Cycle + (or Payment Deferral
Period)
Or
Days Sales in Inventory Average Payment Period
Cash Conversion Cycle = (or Inventory Conversion + Average Collection Period + (or Payment Deferral
Period) Period)
Inventory Conversion Period Average Collection Period
Operating Cycle
1. Relaxed Working Capital Investment Policy - A policy under which relatively large amounts of cash,
marketable securities, and inventories are carried and under which sales are stimulated by a liberal credit
policy, resulting in a high level of receivables. In this policy, marginal carrying cost of current assets will
increase while marginal shortage costs will decrease.
2. Restricted Working Capital Investment Policy - A policy under which holdings of cash, securities,
inventories, and receivables are minimized. Marginal carrying cost of current assets will decrease while
marginal shortage costs will increase.
3. Moderate Working Capital Investment Policy - A policy that is between the relaxed and restricted
policies. This policy dictates that the firm will just have enough current assets so that the marginal
carrying cost of current assets and marginal shortage costs are equal, thereby minimizing total cost.
1. Conservative (Relaxed) Financing Strategy – a working capital financing policy under which the firm
funds both its seasonal and its permanent requirements with long-term debt.
2. Aggressive (Restricted) Financing Strategy – a working capital financing policy which uses short-term
liabilities to finance temporary assets and part or all of permanent assets of the company.
3. Matching (Self-liquidating/Hedging) Financing Strategy – a working capital financing policy which
matches the financing source with specific financing needs
short-term assets are financed with short-term liabilities
long-term assets are financed with long-term debt
The greater the risk, the greater is the potential for larger returns.
More current assets lead to greater liquidity but yield lower returns.
Fixed assets earn greater returns than current assets.
Long-term financing has less liquidity risk than short-term debt, but has higher explicit cost, hence, lower return.
CASH MANAGEMENT
Cash Management – involves the maintenance of the appropriate level of cash and investment in marketable securities to
meet the firm’s cash requirements and to maximize income on idle funds.
Objective: to invest cash for a return while retaining sufficient liquidity to satisfy future needs.
1. Transaction purposes
2. Compensating balance requirement
3. Precautionary reserves
4. Potential investment opportunities
5. Speculation
Cash Budget
Cash budget is the tool used to present the expected cash inflows and cash outflows.
Cash Break-Even Chart shows the relationship between the company’s cash needs and cash sources in a chart
form, indicating the amount of cash that should be maintained to enable the company meet its obligation.
Sales or Cash
Inflows
Baumol Cash Management Model (or simply Baumol Model) – an EOQ-type model which can be used to
determine the optimal cash balance where the costs of maintaining and obtaining cash are at the minimum. The following
costs are to be considered:
Formula:
The Miller-Orr Model takes a different approach in calculating the optimal cash management strategy. It assumes
that the distribution of daily net cash flows is normally distributed and allows for both cash inflows and outflows.
Formulae:
UCL = 3OCR – 2L where: UCL = Upper Control Limit for cash balances
Interpretation of results:
When the cash balance gets up to the UCL, the firm has to reduce its cash to the OCR by investing at marketable
securities. When the cash gets down to the LCL, the company has to increase its cash to OCR by selling its marketable
securities.
Float – the difference between the bank’s balance for a firm’s account and the balance that the firm shows on its own
books.
1. Negative Float (Collections Float) – represents the amount of checks received but were not yet
credited by the bank to the company’s account. In this type of float, book balance exceeds bank
balance, hence there is more cash tied up in the collection cycle and it earns a 0% rate of return.
a. Mail Float – peso amount of customers’ payments that have been mailed by a customer but
not yet received by the seller.
b. Processing Float – peso amount of customers’ payments that have been received by the
seller but not yet deposited.
c. Clearing Float – peso amount of customers’ checks that have been deposited but not yet
cleared.
2. Positive Float (Disbursement Float) – represents the value of the checks the firm has written but
are still being processed and have not yet been deducted from the firm’s account balance by the
bank. Thus, in this type of float, bank balance exceeds book balance.
1. Accelerating Cash Collections – using mechanisms in speeding up recovery from debtors for credit sales.
a. Prompt customer billing
b. Offering incentives for prompt payment such as cash discounts
c. Use of lockbox system – customers mail their payments to a post office box in a specific city. The local
bank collects the checks from this box and deposits them in the firm’s account.
d. Maintenance of local collection office
e. Direct deposit to the firm’s depository bank
f. Use of Automatic/Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) or payment by wire
2. Controlling/Slowing Disbursements
a. Delaying of payments
b. Maintenance of Zero-Balance Account (ZBA)
c. Play the float
d. Less frequent payroll
3. Reducing the Need for Precautionary Balance
a. More accurate cash budgeting
b. Have ready lines of credit – a pre-arranged loan where the company can withdraw anytime within
the period specified in the agreement.
c. Temporary investment in highly liquid, short-term securities/investments
Marketable Securities (MS) – short-term money market instruments that can easily be converted to cash.
Examples:
a. Treasury Bills – debt instruments representing obligations of the National Government issued by the
Central Bank and sold at a discount through competitive bidding.
b. Commercial Papers – short-term, unsecured promissory notes issued by corporations with very high
credit standing.
c. Negotiable Certificates of Deposit – short-term transferrable instruments representing deposit of a certain
amount in a commercial bank.
d. Banker’s Acceptance – short-term marketable securities arising from bank guarantees of business
transactions.
1. Risk
a. Default Risk
b. Interest Rate Risk
c. Inflation Risk
2. Marketability – refers to how quickly a security can be sold before maturity without a significant price
concession.
3. Maturity
Accounts Receivables Management – the formulation and administration of plans and policies related to sales on
account and ensuring the maintenance of receivables at a predetermined level and their collectability as planned.
Objective: to have both the optimal amount of receivables outstanding and the optimal amount of bad debts.
CREDIT POLICY
1. Credit Standards – the criteria that determine which customers will be granted credit and how much.
Five C’s of Credit:
a. Character – refers to the probability that the customers will pay their debts or obligations.
b. Capacity – the customer’s ability to pay/generate cash flows.
c. Capital – measurement of the customer’s general financial condition as indicated by the analysis
of the firm’s financial statements.
d. Collateral – the asset that the customer may offer as security to obtain credit.
e. Conditions – current economic conditions and special developments that might affect the
company’s ability to meet obligations.
2. Credit Terms – define the credit period and any discount offered for early payment.
3. Collection Policies – the procedures the firm follows to collect past-due accounts.
4. Delinquency and Default
1. Terms of sale
2. Paying practices of customers
3. Collection policies and practices
4. Volume of credit sales
5. Credit extension policies and practices
6. Cost of capital
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Inventory Management – the formulation and administration of planes and policies to efficiently and satisfactorily meet
production and merchandising requirements and minimize costs relative to inventories.
Objective: to maintain inventory at a level that best balances the estimates of actual savings, the cost of carrying
additional inventory, and the efficiency of inventory control.
FUNCTIONS OF INVENTORIES
1. Pipeline or transit inventories – inventories moved or transported from one location to another and they
fill the supply pipelines between stages of the entire production-distribution system.
2. Organizational or decoupling inventories – inventories maintained to provide each link in the
production distribution chain a certain degree of independence from the others.
3. Seasonal or anticipation stock – inventories built-up in anticipation of price increase or as part of
promotional sales campaign.
4. Batch or lot-size inventories – inventories maintained whenever the user makes or buys material in
larger lots than are needed for his immediate purposes.
5. Safety or buffer stock – inventories maintained to protect the company from uncertainties such as
unexpected customer demand, delays in delivery of goods ordered, etc.
The EOQ formula assumes a uniform rate of materials usage. To illustrate, assume a company has an
annual requirement of 2,400 units, an ordering cost per unit of P20 per order, and a carrying cost of P0.15. The
EOQ is:
2 X 2,400 X
2 X U X OC P96,000
EOQ = = P20 =
= √ 640,000 = 800 units
CC P0.15 P0.15
Quantity Discounts. Some purchase prices are discounted if larger quantities are ordered. Larger shipments can also
generate freight savings. These changes result in a lower unit cost and thus can alter the EOQ calculation.
Suppose the annual usage of an item is 3,600 units costing P1 each, with no quantity discount available;
the carrying cost is 20% of the average inventory investment; and the cost to place an order is P10. The EOQ is:
2 X 3,600 X
2 X U X OC P72,000
EOQ = = P10 =
= √ 360,000 = 600 units
CC P1 X 20% P0.20
With quantity discounts, the cost of materials is not a constant because it is affected by the size of the discount.
Therefore, the objective is to identify an order quantity that minimizes not just the sum of the ordering and carrying costs,
but the sum of these costs plus the cost of the materials.
Determining the Time to Order
The EOQ formula addresses the quantity problem of inventory planning, but the question of when to order is
equally important. The question is controlled by three factors: (1) time needed for delivery, (2) rate of inventory usage,
and (3) safety stock. Determining the order point would be relatively simple if precise predictions were available for both
rate of usage and lead time (the interval between the time an order is placed and the time the materials are on the factory
floor ready for production). For most stock items, there is a variation in either or all of these factors that almost always
causes one of three results:
(1) If lead time or usage is below expectation during an order period, the new materials arrive before the existing stock is
consumed, thereby adding to the cost of carrying inventory;
(2) If lead time or usage is greater than expected, a stockout will occur, with its many forms of costs, including customer loss;
and
(3) If average or normal lead time and usage are used to determine an order point,, a stockout can be expected on every other
order.
To prevent possible stockouts, most companies often require safety stocks. The basic problem, however, is the
determination of the quantity of stocks to be kept safe to avoid stockouts. The optimum safety stocks should be that
quantity which would result in the smallest total costs of stockouts plus the carrying cost of the safety stocks. The annual
cost of stockouts depends on the frequency of their occurrence and the cost of each stockout.
To illustrate, assume that a company uses an item for which it places 10 orders per year, the cost of stockout is
P30, the carrying cost is P0.50 per year per unit, and the following probabilities of a stockout have been estimated for
various levels of safety stocks:
The total carrying cost and stockout cost at each level of safety stock are determined as follows:
In this illustration, the optimum level of safety stock is 100 units.
Order Point
Order point is reached when available quantity is just equal to the foreseeable needs; that is when the available
units of inventory on hand and quantities due in equals the sum of the quantity of units for use during the lead time plus
the safety stock quantity. Thus,
Order Point units = Lead time quantity + Safety Stocks
For example, a company has the following data on its inventory carriage and order: