Debits and credits in double-entry bookkeeping are entries made in account ledgers to record changes in value resulting from business transactions. A debit entry in an account represents a transfer of value to that account, and a credit entry represents a transfer from the account. Each transaction transfers value from credited accounts to debited accounts. For example, a tenant who writes a rent cheque to a landlord would enter a credit for the bank account on which the cheque is drawn, and a debit in a rent expense account. Similarly, the landlord would enter a credit in the rent income account associated with the tenant and a debit for the bank account where the cheque is deposited.
In management accounting, the Cash conversion cycle (CCC) measures how long a firm will be deprived of cash if it increases its investment in inventory in order to expand customer sales. It is thus a measure of the liquidity risk entailed by growth. However, shortening the CCC creates its own risks: while a firm could even achieve a negative CCC by collecting from customers before paying suppliers, a policy of strict collections and lax payments is not always sustainable.
Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.
Accounts receivable, abbreviated as AR or A/R, are legally enforceable claims for payment held by a business for goods supplied or services rendered that customers have ordered but not paid for. The accounts receivable process involves customer onboarding, invoicing, collections, deductions, exception management, and finally, cash posting after the payment is collected.
In business and accounting, net income is an entity's income minus cost of goods sold, expenses, depreciation and amortization, interest, and taxes for an accounting period.
In accountancy, days sales outstanding is a calculation used by a company to estimate the size of their outstanding accounts receivable. It measures this size not in units of currency, but in average sales days.
Working capital (WC) is a financial metric which represents operating liquidity available to a business, organisation, or other entity, including governmental entities. Along with fixed assets such as plant and equipment, working capital is considered a part of operating capital. Gross working capital is equal to current assets. Working capital is calculated as current assets minus current liabilities. If current assets are less than current liabilities, an entity has a working capital deficiency, also called a working capital deficit and negative working capital.
The return on equity (ROE) is a measure of the profitability of a business in relation to its equity; where:
Debt collection or cash collection is the process of pursuing payments of money or other agreed-upon value owed to a creditor. The debtors may be individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a collection agency or debt collector. Most collection agencies operate as agents of creditors and collect debts for a fee or percentage of the total amount owed. Historically, debtors could face debt slavery, debtor's prison, or coercive collection methods. In the 21st century in many countries, legislation regulates debt collectors, and limits harassment and practices deemed unfair.
Alpha is a measure of the active return on an investment, the performance of that investment compared with a suitable market index. An alpha of 1% means the investment's return on investment over a selected period of time was 1% better than the market during that same period; a negative alpha means the investment underperformed the market.
A credit limit is the maximum amount of credit that a financial institution or other lender extends to a debtor on a particular credit card or line of credit. Lenders generally set limits based on specific information about credit-seeking applicants, including income and employment status. Credit limits play an influential role on a consumers' credit scores and their eligibility to obtain future credit
In accounting, the inventory turnover is a measure of the number of times inventory is sold or used in a time period such as a year. It is calculated to see if a business has an excessive inventory in comparison to its sales level. The equation for inventory turnover equals the cost of goods sold divided by the average inventory. Inventory turnover is also known as inventory turns, merchandise turnover, stockturn, stock turns, turns, and stock turnover.
Financial statement analysis is the process of reviewing and analyzing a company's financial statements to make better economic decisions to earn income in future. These statements include the income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows, notes to accounts and a statement of changes in equity. Financial statement analysis is a method or process involving specific techniques for evaluating risks, performance, valuation, financial health, and future prospects of an organization.
In finance, asset turnover (ATO), total asset turnover, or asset turns is a financial ratio that measures the efficiency of a company's use of its assets in generating sales revenue or sales income to the company. Asset turnover is considered to be a profitability ratio, which is a group of financial ratios that measure how efficiently a company uses assets. Asset turnover can be furthered subdivided into fixed asset turnover, which measures a company's use of its fixed assets to generate revenue, and working capital turnover, which measures a company's use of its working capital to generate revenue. Total asset turnover ratios can be used to calculate return on equity (ROE) figures as part of DuPont analysis. As a financial and activity ratio, and as part of DuPont analysis, asset turnover is a part of company fundamental analysis.
Fixed-asset turnover is the ratio of sales to the value of fixed assets. It indicates how well the business is using its fixed assets to generate sales.
In accounting the term debtor collection period indicates the average time taken to collect trade debts. In other words, a reducing period of time is an indicator of increasing efficiency. It enables the enterprise to compare the real collection period with the granted/theoretical credit period.
Days in inventory is an efficiency ratio which measures the average number of days a company holds its inventory before selling it. The ratio measures the number of days funds are tied up in inventory. Inventory levels are divided by sales per day
Days payable outstanding (DPO) is an efficiency ratio that measures the average number of days a company takes to pay its suppliers.
A financial ratio or accounting ratio states the relative magnitude of two selected numerical values taken from an enterprise's financial statements. Often used in accounting, there are many standard ratios used to try to evaluate the overall financial condition of a corporation or other organization. Financial ratios may be used by managers within a firm, by current and potential shareholders (owners) of a firm, and by a firm's creditors. Financial analysts use financial ratios to compare the strengths and weaknesses in various companies. If shares in a company are publicly listed, the market price of the shares is used in certain financial ratios.
