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Cash flow is fundamental for successful businesses and not having cash readily available could result in a loss of opportunities and failure to meet financial obligations. Working capital is current assets less current liabilities and is often expressed as a multiple in order to compare businesses within a sector. The measure attempts to assess short term liquidity of a business and determine how well the company can cover the payment of its forthcoming liabilities. It provides an indication of how much cash a business has tied up in current assets and whether it can cover its short-term obligations.
If an industry has inventory which cannot be easily liquidated then often an amended version of the metric is calculated. This uses current assets less inventory instead of current assets and is called the acid test or quick ratio.
Operating working capital is defined as operating current assets less operating current liabilities. Operating represents assets or liabilities which are used in the day-to-day operations of the business or if they are not interest bearing (financial). Cash and other financial assets are typically excluded from operating current assets and debt is normally excluded from operating current liabilities.
Operational Assets
These are defined as resources used to generate revenues and essential for ongoing business operations. Inventories, accounts receivable, and prepaid assets are all short-term operational assets. Often cash is excluded because it’s not necessary in the day-to-day running of a business. However, sometimes it may be classed as operational if a business requires cash, such as a travel shop for currency exchange. However, most businesses purchase and sell goods/services on credit and don’t require cash to generate revenues.
Operational Liabilities
These are classified as non-interest bearing liabilities and result from the operational activities of the business. Accounts payable, salaries payable, and most accrued liabilities are all operational. They are not interest bearing (in the normal course of business) and, therefore, often referred to as providing “free funding” to the business.
Free Funding
Often analysts view a business as an operational entity that requires funding. This represents the “sources and uses” view of the balance sheet. Short-term assets are required to operate a business, and require funding, but how are these assets funded? Some funding is “free” since under normal circumstances it is not interest bearing. A great example of free funding is accounts payable, whereas debt is interest bearing. OWC distinguishes between interest bearing financial items and non-interest bearing operational items.
What Does the Calculation Mean?
A business with positive OWC, where short-term operating assets is greater than short-term operating liabilities, require short-term funding. Cash is “tied up” in the business creating the funding requirement. Businesses with negative OWC, where short-term operating liabilities is greater than short-term operating assets, get extra “free funding”.
A highly positive working capital will mean the company is more than capable of meeting its short-term obligations and can put the surplus of funds to invest. Likewise, a negative figure means the company may have difficulty meeting its short-term obligations in the future.
Problems with OWC?
You need to be careful when using OWC as an operational measure as it is very dependent on the industry and how it operates. Many analysts use the metric to compare two or more businesses of different sizes by representing the number as a percentage of sales. This makes the metric more comparable as the absolute number calculated before only provides just that, a number. The larger the business, the larger the number, due to the scale of their operations rather than their efficiency. It is meaningless to compare companies of different sectors due to the difference in the characteristics of the industry.
I’m not an accountant so bear with me here, but I’m confused about the following paragraph:
“A business with positive OWC, where short-term operating assets is greater than short-term operating liabilities, require short-term funding. Cash is “tied up” in the business creating the funding requirement. Businesses with negative OWC, where short-term operating liabilities is greater than short-term operating assets, get extra “free funding”.
This seems backwards to me. If current assets are greater than current liabilities, then wouldn’t the need for funding be less than if the situation was reversed? What am I missing?
Hi Rob,
Great question. The topic can be confusing and the key focus is whether the business has enough cash to meet its short term obligations. A business typically has suppliers where it receives goods or services and often, the supplier will send an invoice rather than be paid in cash upfront. The supplier will provide a credit period of usually 30 days where the business needs to pay for the goods/services received in cash. However, if the business has purchased lots of inventory or provided a credit period to its own customers, then its cash is effectively tied up in the business. If the business has a negative OWC (current operating liabilities exceed current operating assets), then the business owes cash and is effectively funded by its suppliers. It can use this cash to fund other areas of the business before paying the invoice. In this context, “free” means non-interest bearing, the business has acquired a source of funding where it does not need to pay interest.
Imagine you buy and sell wood, and have operating current assets of inventory, and no operating current liabilities at all. The more your wood inventory increases, the more you have spent buying inventory. Cash has left your bank and gone to your supplier. In effect your cash is now tied up in the wood. This tied up cash requires funding. This si what happens when operating current assets and greater than current operating liabilities.
Now imagine a different scenario where you have no inventory at all, but have accounts payable (you owe wood suppliers who supplied you with wood months ago but you didn’t pay for it this time). This is amazing for your cash and bank balance. Your supplier’s cash is quite literally sitting in your bank account. This is a free source of funding ie it didn’t cost you any interest. Companies would love to be in this situation