Cash management is a very important function of managers. Companies need to manage their operations in a way that they can sustain growth and yet not run out of cash. Consider the case of Hungry Whale Electronics Company: Hungry Whale Electronics Company is a mature firm that has a stable flow of business. The following data was taken from its financial statements last year: Annual sales Cost of goods sold Inventory Accounts receivable Accounts payable $9,700,000 $7,760,000 $2,800,000 $1,900,000 $2,700,000 Hungry Whale's CFO is interested in determining the length of time funds are tied up in working capital. Use the information in the preceding table to complete the following table. (Note: Use 365 days as the length of a year in all calculations, and round all values to two decimal places.) Value Inventory Conversion Period Average collection period Payables Deferral Period Cash conversion cycle Both the inventory conversion period and payables deferral period use the average daily COGS in their denominators, whereas the average collection period uses average daily sales in its denominator. Why do these measures use different inputs? Inventory and accounts payable are carried at cost on the balance sheet, whereas accounts receivable are recorded at the price at which goods are sold. Current assets should be divided by sales, but current liabilities should be divided by the COGS. O Is there generally a positive or negative relationship between net working capital and the cash conversion cycle? (In other words, if a firm has a high level of net working capital, is it likely to have a high or low cash conversion cycle?) There is a positive relationship between net working capital and the cash conversion cycle. There is a negative relationship between net working capital and the cash conversion cycle. The management at Hungry Whale Electronics Company wants to continue its internal discussions related to its cash management. One of the finance team members presents the following case to his cohorts: Which of the following responses to the CFO's statement is most accurate? Case in Discussion Red Hamster Manufacturing's management plans to finance its operations with bank loans that will be repaid as soon as cash is available. The company's management expects that it will take 40 days to manufacture and sell its products and 35 days to receive payment from its customers. Red Hamster's CFO has told the rest of the management team that they should expect the length of the bank loans to be approximately 75 days. The CFO's approximation of the length of the bank loans should be accurate, because it will take 75 days for the company to manufacture, sell, and collect cash for its goods. All these things must occur for the company to be able to repay its loans from the bank. The CFO is not taking into account the amount of time the company has to pay its suppliers. Generally, there is a certain length of time between the purchase of materials and labor and the payment of cash for them. The CFO can reduce the estimated length of the bank loan by this amount of time
