Your monthly business financial statements provide information about previous months' activities, but even if the statements look good, you can still bet more out of them.
Many business owners rely on monthly financial statements plus monthly financial ratios. Ratios can be prepared from information already in your accounting software. Following are tools for measuring particular aspects of your business:
Liquidity:
- Current ratio - current assets over current liabilities.
- Receivables turnover - how quickly customers pay.
- Inventory turnover - how long your inventory sits.
Profitability:
- Profit margin - profit generated by sales.
- Asset turnover - sales generated by assets.
- Return on assets - profit generated by assets.
Solvency:
- Debt to total assets - percent of assets owned by creditors.
- Interest coverage ratio - ability to pay interest.
- Cash debt coverage ratio - ability to pay long-term debt.
Program your accounting system to produce key accounting ratios, review them monthly and get new insight on your business.
Yes, knowing the entire financial health of your business is great, but there are times when all you want to know is your company's short term liquidity, and for that the quick ratio or acid-test ratio is where to look.
Here's what it looks like:
The quick ratio will tell you if your company is able to pay its short-term bills using your most liquid assets (cash, money in bank accounts, money market mutual funds, and US Treasury bills)
It's like the current ratio in the sense that it measures your ability to pay short-term debts, but it's more conservative of a measurement because it takes out inventory from your current assets. The inventory is subtracted from the current assets because some businesses can't quickly turn their inventory into cash. The current ratio can sometimes overestimate a company's ability to pay its short-term bills.
For example, if current assets equal $15,000 current inventory equals $6,000 and current liabilities equal $3,000, then quick ratio amounts to: ($15,000 - $6,000)/$3,000 = 3. Since we subtracted current inventory, it means that for every dollar of current liabilities there are three dollars of easily convertible assets.
Ideally, your company's quick ratio should be 1:1. The higher the ratio, the stronger your company is.
Learn more about inventory ratios. Download the Inventory Turnover Ratio white paper.
In the world of accounting, ratios give and invaluable amount of information about your company and it's fiscal well being. Accountants use financial ratio analysis on a regular basis. These analyses help to evaluate the financial performance by comparing financial ratios of a business over various periods of time to other businesses in the same industry.
In his book Financial Analysis Tools and Techniques , financial expert Erich A. Helfert defines ratios analysis as
"the use of a variety of ratios in analyzing the financial performance and condition of a business from various viewpoints such as managers, owners, and creditors.
Get out your financial calculator.
There are three different types of ratios:
Liquidity
Profitability
Solvency
Liquidity
Liquidity ratios measure your business short-term ability to pay bills as they are due and let you know if you have the cash to cover and unexpected expenses. Liquidity ratios compare your most liquid assets (assets that are easily turned into cash) with your short-term liabilities. In general, the greater the ratio of liquid assets to short-term liabilities, the better off your company is. These ratios let you know that your company can pay debts that are owed and still continue to operate normally.
Current Ratios
Acid Test Ratios
Current Cash Debt Coverage
Receivables Turnover
Inventory Turnover
Profitability
Profitability ratios measure the operating success of your company for a specific period of time. They give you a better understanding of how well your company made use of its resources to generate profit.
Profitability Ratios
Profit Margin
Cash Return on sales
Asset Turnover
Return on Assets
Return of Equity
Solvency
Solvency ratios measure how well your business can survive over a long period of time by measuring your income after taxes. Solvency ratios take a look at your past financial statement analysis and let you know if your company can continue to pay its debts now and in the future by looking at your income after taxes. A ratio that is higher that 20% means that your business is financially healthy. The lower your ratio, the greater chance your company will default on its debt obligations.
Solvency Ratios
Debt to Asset
Times Interest Earned
Cash Debt Coverage
All of these ratios, liquidity, profitability, and solvency alike can provide you with useful financial information about your company. If you can get so much information from just looking at one type of ratio, imagine the invaluable knowledge you can gain to keep everything on track and guide your company to success.
