How to Improve Working Capital
Working capital is a measure of a company’s short-term liquidity, and it’s calculated as current assets minus current liabilities. Having adequate working capital is crucial for a company’s day-to-day operations and for maintaining financial stability. Here are several ways to improve working capital:
- Increase Sales: This is the most direct method of improving working capital. Higher sales can lead to increased cash inflow, which can enhance your working capital position.
- Improve Accounts Receivable Collection: Implement strategies to collect payment from customers more quickly. This might involve offering discounts for early payments, following up on unpaid invoices more promptly, or tightening credit terms.
- Manage Inventory Efficiently: Reducing the amount of cash tied up in inventory can improve working capital. You might achieve this by implementing just-in-time inventory management strategies, improving demand forecasting, or eliminating obsolete inventory.
- Negotiate Longer Payment Terms with Suppliers: By extending the time you have to pay your suppliers, you can hold onto your cash longer and improve your working capital position.
- Reduce Overhead Costs: Look for areas in which you can cut costs without affecting your product’s quality or your ability to operate effectively. This might involve consolidating office space, reducing travel expenses, or cutting back on non-essential business activities.
- Refinance Short-Term Debt: If you have significant short-term debt, refinancing to a long-term loan can improve your working capital by reducing the current liability portion.
- Sell Non-essential Assets: If your business owns assets that aren’t essential to operations, consider selling them to increase working capital. This could include unused equipment or property.
- Improve Profit Margins: You can also improve working capital by increasing your profit margins, whether that’s by increasing prices, reducing the cost of goods sold, or both.
Remember that while it’s important to have enough working capital to cover short-term obligations, having too much cash tied up in working capital can also be inefficient. A balance must be struck to ensure that resources are being put to their best possible use.
Example of How to Improve Working Capital
Let’s consider a hypothetical company, “PQR Widgets,” a manufacturer and distributor of widgets. Here’s how they might improve their working capital:
- Increase Sales: PQR launches a new marketing campaign and introduces a new product line that increases their sales. This brings more cash into the company, thereby increasing their working capital.
- Improve Accounts Receivable Collection: PQR decides to offer a discount for customers who pay their invoices within ten days. As a result, they are able to collect payments more quickly, which increases their working capital.
- Manage Inventory Efficiently: PQR identifies several slow-moving items in their inventory. They decide to stop producing these items and sell off the remaining stock, thus freeing up cash that was previously tied up in inventory.
- Negotiate Longer Payment Terms with Suppliers: PQR negotiates with their suppliers to extend their payment terms from 30 days to 45 days. This allows PQR to hold onto their cash for a longer period, improving their working capital.
- Reduce Overhead Costs: PQR realizes they’re using only half of their office space. They decide to sublet the unused half to another company, thereby reducing their rental expenses and improving their working capital.
- Refinance Short-Term Debt: PQR has a substantial short-term loan that’s due in six months. They refinance this into a long-term loan payable over three years. This reduces their short-term liabilities and increases their working capital.
- Sell Non-essential Assets: PQR owns some machinery that’s no longer used in their production process. They sell this machinery, bringing additional cash into the business and improving working capital.
- Improve Profit Margins: After a thorough analysis, PQR finds out that they have room to increase the price of their widgets without affecting sales. They also negotiate better prices with their suppliers, reducing their cost of goods sold. Both these moves increase their profit margin, providing more cash that can be used as working capital.
By implementing these strategies, PQR Widgets can significantly improve its working capital, providing more liquidity for day-to-day operations and creating a stronger financial foundation for the company.
