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Managing the inventory of a business is an important. Having insufficient inventory on hand can often result in lost sales and dissatisfied customers. But having too much inventory on hand can be financially strenuous as your available cash is tied up in product that sits in your warehouse. Businesses that successfully manage their inventory keep enough on hand to satisfy demand and replenish that inventory just as their supply is running out. Businesses that are seasonal in nature or that have fluctuating demand keep a ‘safety stock’ on hand to make sure they can accommodate unanticipated need.
While there are potentially many ways to value a business, one popular method is using the discounted, or present value, of your estimated cash flow. This method takes your current income, before income, taxes, depreciation and amortization and projected income for a defined number of years and determines the present value of that income, based on the cost of capital. Some businesses are less valuable because of their marketability and as a result a discount is often applied to reflect the difficulties that may be encountered when trying to sell the business. Keep in mind that this method does not include the value of your companies assets, only its ability to produce income.
Accounts receivable are monies owed to your business for goods or services delivered to a customer, but not yet paid for. Successful businesses collect money that is owed to them in a timely and efficient manner. Having too much money tied up in receivables means you’re not collecting the cash to pay for the goods or services you’ve provided. Not extending credit may impact sales. The ‘Receivables Turnover Ratio’ measures a businesses effectiveness in extending credit and collecting debt. The higher the ratio, the more effective the business is in dealing with its receivables. The accounts receivable to sales ratio looks at the amount you have tied up in receivables in comparison to your same period sales. The Average Collection Period shows how long, on average, it takes for you to collect your debts.
Working capital is the amount you have remaining when current liabilities are subtracted from current assets. Whether a business has enough working capital is measured by the ‘current ratio’, or current assets divided by current liabilities. Generally, a current ratio of between 1.2 and 2 is considered the sign of a healthy business. If your current ratio is below 1.2, its an indicator that your business might have difficulties paying its bills. If it is above 2, its an indicator that your assets are not being put to their best use.
Even if a business is profitable, it might fail because it isn’t generating enough cash flow. Money that is tied up in inventory and receivables isn’t available to help the business pay its bills. You can vary inventory levels, payment terms, etc. to find the formula that is right for your business to make sure you are generating a positive cash flow.
Does it make better sense to buy or lease a new piece of equipment? That depends on a number of factors, such as the residual value of the equipment you intend to purchase, the amount of money you pay up front as a capitalized cost reduction and the cost of financing. A lease will usually be a more attractive option when compared to an equipment purchase when measured over a comparable term. Keep in mind that with a lease, you will have to return the equipment at the end of the lease term, whereas if you buy, you will own the equipment and will be able to continue driving it after the term expires.
Repayment of a business loan requires that the borrower make a monthly payment back to the lender. That monthly payment includes both repayment of the loan principal, plus monthly interest on the outstanding balance. Loan payments are amortized so that your monthly payment remains the same during the repayment period, but during that period, the percentage of the payment that goes towards principal will increase as the outstanding loan balance decreases.
Financial ratios provide a means of measuring the overall health of a business. While numerous measures exist, the most popular measure the overall health of your business analyzing income, liquidity, assets, debt and profitability.
Income Analysis
Liquidity
Asset Management
Debt Management
Profitability
If you’re trying to pay down some of your business debt, you might be wondering how long it might take by making the standard payment, or what the impact might be if you increased the monthly payment each month. If you increase the monthly payment, the amount of the increase typically gets applied directly to reducing the amount owed, or principle. Reducing the amount of money you owe will reduce your interest charges each month, as the interest rate will be applied only to the outstanding loan balance. An increase in your monthly payment will lessen the amount of interest charges you will pay over the repayment period and shorten the number of months it will take to pay off the loan. Most loans require you to, at a minimum, cover the monthly interest costs on the outstanding balance and if it is a traditional, or amortized loan, you’ll always be required to make the agreed upon payment at a minimum.
Business lines of credit often have more flexible repayment terms than a standard business loan. Business loan payments are typically fixed over the repayment period, while business lines of credit can offer interest-only payment terms or outstanding balances can be repaid using a variety of repayment strategies. Businesses with uncertain or fluctuating revenue streams, such as startups or seasonal businesses may benefit more from the flexible repayment terms a business line of credit offers.
Debt consolidation loans allow businesses to transfer the account balances from credit cards, lines of credit or installment loans into a single loan and to make a single monthly payment. For debt consolidation loans to be beneficial, the repayment period for paying off the consolidation loan should be shorter than what it would be for your existing debts without the loan. Secondly, the interest that you pay over the repayment period should be less than what you would pay with your existing repayment periods. In some cases, a debt consolidation loan may look attractive because it has a significantly lower monthly payment than what you are paying today, but it is likely the case that the lower payment is due to extending the repayment of the loan over a much longer repayment period.
How much is a customer worth to you? In order to really know that, its often important to look at the amount of business they’ll give you over the course of their lifetime as a customer and not just based on an individual purchase. Knowing how much each customer that you can bring through the door will deliver in sales and profit is an important consideration when you’re making marketing decisions and incurring expenses to obtain new customers.
Email marketing has become a popular and cost-effective method for reaching prospects and generating revenue. Like any marketing expense, its important to understand the return that you’re making on such an investment. Ideally, you want to be generating a return on investment that exceeds the return you could achieve by using those expense dollars in other areas of the company or investing them. To effectively measure ROI, you need to carefully track your response and conversion rates so that you know which sales can be tracked back to a specific campaign.
Direct marketing has been a staple of many companies marketing mix for decades and many successful companies have been built with direct marketing as the backbone of their marketing initiatives. Like any marketing expense, its important to understand the return that you’re making on such an investment. Ideally, you want to be generating a return on investment that exceeds the return you could achieve by using those expense dollars in other areas of the company or investing them. To effectively measure ROI, you need to carefully track your costs, response and conversion rates and sales so that you know which sales can be tracked back to a specific campaign.
How many people that visit your website actually purchase your product or service or subscribe to your offering? When you incur marketing expenses to drive people to your website, are you converting them into customers or are they just coming and leaving without buying? Understanding the value of a website visitor and your conversion rate can help you determine where to make further investments in your online business, whether that be improving the conversion rate, or driving more traffic to your existing site.
There are many marketing opportunities available to internet-based businesses. One of those is ‘pay-per-click’ advertising, whereby you only pay when somebody clicks on a link to your site, rather than when they view an advertisement. Ideally, you want to be generating a return on each ‘per-click’ investment that exceeds the return you could achieve by using those expense dollars in other areas of the company or investing them. To effectively measure ROI, you need to carefully track your conversion rates and costs so that you know which sales can be tracked back to a specific campaign.
Vehicle manufacturers or dealers will often offer incentives to purchase a specific vehicle in the form of a low rate loan or a cash back incentive. While a low rate loan sounds attractive, you might be better off taking the cash back, using it to add to your down payment and reducing the loan amount for the vehicle. Evaluate which option is best. A lower loan amount will mean a lower monthly payment and you might find that the interest savings you’ll gain by the low rate loan is less than the cash back amount.
Like many credit card holders, there are times when you might have overdone it on the spending and are now facing the task of paying off your credit card balance. The length of time it will take is largely driven by the interest rate you’re paying on the outstanding balance, how much you continue to use the card and what you pay each month in terms of a monthly payment. A good rule of thumb is to try to pay off any card balance in 36 months, but you might want to see what it will take to pay off the balance in shorter or longer increments of time.
Having savings is important, especially when the savings are part of an emergency fund or a hedge against loss of income. But when you also have debt, in the form of an outstanding credit card balance or loan, you might want to consider whether you’re better off using the money you have in savings to pay down debt. Whether it makes sense or not is determined by the interest rate you’re earning on your savings versus the interest rate you’re being charged on your outstanding loan balance. The difference between earning interest and paying it should give you a good indication of where you can get the best return.
One popular strategy for accelerating the payoff of a loan is to make ‘bi-weekly’ payments. Under the bi-weekly plan, you’ll make payments to your lender every two weeks instead of monthly of half of your monthly payment. One important thing to note here is that this method will result in you making 26 payments each year, which are two more than you would make if you made a payment on the 1st day of the month and middle of the month, so you’ll have to budget accordingly. By making bi-weekly payments, you’ll comparatively make an extra monthly payment each year which will reduce your amount owed. By making payments every other week, you’ll also save a bit on interest charges for the outstanding loan balance that would normally still be there until the end of the month.
If you’re trying to pay down some debt, you might be wondering what the impact would be if you simply increased your monthly payment each month by just a little, or even a lot. When you increase your monthly payment, the amount of the increase gets applied directly to reducing the amount owed, or principle. Reducing the amount of money you owe will reduce your interest charges each month, as the interest rate will be applied only to the outstanding loan balance. An increase in your monthly payment will lessen the amount of interest charges you will pay over the repayment period and shorten the number of months it will take to pay off the loan.
At some point in time, you’re likely to receive an offer in the mail. Transfer an existing credit card balance to a new card and receive a promotional interest rate for a set number of months. Are these offers worth it? It depends on the promotional interest rate, the length of the promotional period, what the standard interest rate is once the promotional period expires and what the fee is to transfer your balance from one card to another. During the promotional period you might be paying a lower rate, or 0% depending on the offer. Are the interest savings greater than the balance transfer fee? Whether they’re a good deal or not also depends on how long it takes you to pay off the card balance once you transfer it to a new card.
As you determine which vehicle to buy and which loan terms to choose, the choices you make can have a big difference in terms of what your monthly payments will be and what the costs of the loan will be once the loan is paid off.
The term of your vehicle loan can make a big difference in what your monthly payment looks like. It can also have significant on the amount of interest you’ll pay over the course of the loan. You pay interest each month on the outstanding balance of the vehicle loan, so the longer the term of the loan the more interest that you’ll pay until the loan is paid off.
Your monthly payment is based on the net purchase price of the vehicle, the loan term and the interest rate for the loan. Loan amount is based on the net purchase price of the vehicle (plus sales tax) or the vehicle price less any cash rebate, trade-in or down payment. If you have an outstanding balance on the vehicle you trade-in, that amount is added to the price of the vehicle you are purchasing.
Balancing a checkbook is easy. Start with the balance from your last checking account statement. Then subtract all checks that you’ve written that were not listed in this last statement, or any previous ones. Then add back all the deposits that you’ve made into your checking account. The result should be the amount you have in your checkbook as your current balance.
Getting your spending under control and in line with your income is an essential element to building a strong financial future. Analyze your spending (including what you put on a credit card) each month to make sure you’re not spending more than you’re bringing in. Once you’ve got that under control, consider placing what ‘extra’ you have every month in savings. You’ll never know when you’ll need it and its better to take money out of a savings account to pay for unanticipated expenses rather than adding it to a credit card balance.
Determining how much money you’re worth is like having your own balance sheet. On the asset side are things you own: homes, cars, investments and personal property. On the liability side are your debts: what you owe on your home mortgage, outstanding loans and credit card balances. Over time, you want to be reducing your liabilities by paying down debt, and building your assets by saving and allowing your assets to work for you by earning interest or building value.
How many times have you asked yourself “where does our money go?” The first step is to categorize your spending into each specific category. If you’ve got multiple monthly bills under a category, you can use the worksheets linked to the right of the input field to enter each separately. Once you see where you’re spending your money it becomes easier to look at reducing spending in specific categories.
Whether you’re trying to save for big screen television, new car or for a down payment on a new home, time, money and rate of return will all be determinant factors of when you’ll meet your savings goal.
Everybody wants to be a millionaire, but few have the savings discipline to get there. Your current savings, additional monthly savings and the rate of return you receive all go into saving to be a millionaire. But it may not stop there. If you want to have a million dollars worth of purchasing power, you have to factor in inflation into your savings plan. That means that depending on the amount of time it takes you to save a million dollars you might have to have saved even more in order to have a million worth of purchasing power.
Depending on how fast prices and rents rise and how long you stay in your home, you may be better off renting rather than buying. Factors that are part of the equation are the difference in monthly rent versus mortgage payment, home value appreciation, annual rent increases, the interest rate you will pay on your loan, your marginal tax rate and the yield you might receive on savings. When looking at these factors, consider the present value of each option. The one with the lower present value will be the better financial choice.
One of the most important questions consumers will ask themselves is “how much money the sale of their home will yield?” That’s largely dependent on two things: the amount you still owe on the home and what you will have to pay your realtor for selling the home. If you have a second mortgage, or home equity loan, on the property you’ll have to pay that off when you sell the home. When you sell a home, you’ll also have to pay interest on your outstanding mortgage balance from the date of your last payment until the date of the sale. You’re also liable for property taxes up until the day you sell the home. At times, seller’s have additional expenses. Local governments will often require that you pay a transfer tax when the home is sold. Incidental closing costs may also nibble away at your proceeds.
When purchasing a home the mortgage you choose and the options you choose with it will have significant impact on how much your home costs you in the long run. Interest charges, origination fees, fees paid for a specific interest rate (formerly referred to as ‘points’) and settlement charges will often have the most impact. Of these, the interest rate you pay will matter most.
Once you have done this, you need to estimate any variable expenses you have. For example, what you spend for entertainment, in restaurants, on gas, at the grocery store, and so on. Don’t underestimate these expenses — if anything, overestimate to give yourself a bit of a financial cushion.
Once you have done this, combine all your expenses for the year, divide by 12, and record the number in your spreadsheet. That will be your monthly expenditures.
Does it make better sense to buy or lease a new vehicle? That depends on a number of factors, such as the residual value of the car you intend to purchase, the amount of money you pay up front as a capitalized cost reduction and the cost of financing. A lease will usually be a more attractive option when compared to a vehicle purchase when measured over a comparable term. Keep in mind that with a lease, you will have to return the vehicle at the end of the lease term, whereas you will own the vehicle and will be able to continue driving it after the term expires.
As the price of gasoline continues to rise the question often arises as to whether it makes financial sense to trade-in a ‘gas guzzler’ for a more fuel-efficient vehicle. There are many factors that go into that decision, including the cost of the new vehicle, the amount of miles you drive and the cost of fuel. You can calculate your monthly fuel savings based on your current miles per gallon, miles driven per month and cost of fuel and estimate how much you’ll save by purchasing a more fuel efficient vehicle and when you’ll breakeven on the fuel efficient vehicle purchase.
The purchase price of the vehicle you can afford is based on several factors, including the monthly payment you can afford to make, your down payment, net value of any vehicle you’ll be trading in and any rebates or cash back offers available from the dealer or manufacturer.
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