It takes money to be in business. Being in business also (hopefully) means making money. Does the business have too much money on hand, or not enough? If too much, how much is excess and what is the best way to invest it? If not enough, how much is needed and what is the best way to obtain it? These are the basic issues of business finance.
Businesses have to have money both to support their normal day to day expenses (operations) and to fund any development work they may be doing. Existing businesses should be able to use their accounting information to determine what their operational costs have been. Future costs should be similar, though they should be adjusted based on any anticipated changes.
Development costs are harder to estimate, because they won′t necessarily be similar to past development costs. A reasonable approach is to do a budget for each development project based on its projected expenses during the planning time frame. Adding up all of the project cash needs should yield the overall development costs. Adding this to the estimated operating costs gives the total business funding required.
Operational income estimates should be based on both historical results and projections for sales during the planning period. Projects vary a lot, they may have positive impact on revenue, negative impact on costs, or neither. Whatever effect each project is thought to have should be added into total development projections. The projected development impact should be added to the operations figures to determine the overall business cash situation.
Subtracting expenses from revenue yields cash flow. If the cash flow is negative for a long enough period, the business will become insolvent. It should attempt to have enough cash available to cover any expected negative cash flow. It is generally prudent to have more than this amount, as unexpected events should always be allowed for. Risk management should decide how much extra is needed.
Borrowing is usually the only way to alleviate short term deficiencies. Banks will make loans for this, or if the business has an open line of credit with a bank, it could be drawn upon. Big companies with high credit ratings might be able to borrow on a money market by issuing commercial paper. Receivables financing or sales of invoices are other possible methods.
Long term deficits can be covered either with debt or equity. Debt could be a bank loan, or the issuance of bonds. Equity involves the sale of stock, either directly, or by some other security such as convertible bonds.
The simplest way of dealing with short term surpluses is simply leaving them in bank accounts. Buying Treasury bills is another low cost, high security option. A third choice would be to go to a money market and buy some commercial paper.
Long term surpluses can be handled in a number of ways. The business may decide to undertake additional development projects. This is not exactly a function of finance, but it is a way in which financial information can feed back into the overall planning process.
If the investment opportunities do not seem attractive, money could be given to the stock holders. The simplest way to do this is by increasing the dividend. Another way is to buy some of the stock off of the market. Reducing the number of shares increases the value of those that are still outstanding.
Management should pay attention to business finance. Done well, it enhances the value of the company and protects it from high risk situations. Done poorly or not at all, it reduces profitability and may doom the company.
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categories: loans,cash flow,fund raising,finance