Çalışma Sermayesi Yönetimi

Abstract

Working capital management is important for two reasons. First, most of the firm ' s investment in current assets is more than half its total assets. Likewise, current liabilities often account for more than half of total liabilities. Second since current assets and liabilities change daily, their effective managment is necessary to ensure sufficient liquidity for the firm. At the same time, effective management assists the firm in reaching its longer run goals. ' The assets of firm are normally broken down, into two classes current (short term ) and fixed (long term ). Current assets are those that are cash or expected to be converted into cash, within one year. Liabilities also are split between current and long term, with current liabilities being those expected to be paid with in one year. There is no universally accepted definition of short term finance. The most important difference between short term and long term finance is the timing of cash flows. Short term financial decisions typically involve cash inflows and out flows that occur within a year or less. For example short term financial decisions are involved when a firm orders row materials, pay in cash, and anticipates selling finished goods in one year for cash. In contrast, long term financial decisions are involved when a firm purchases a special machine that will reduce operating cost over, say, the next five years. What type of questions fall under the heading of short term finance ? To name just a very few : 1. What is a reasonable level of cash to keep on hand ( in bank ) to pay bills 9 2. How much should the firm borrow short term ? 3. How much credit should be extended to customers? Working capital management involves administration of current assets, such as cash, receivables, and inventories, and current liabilities as well. Net working capital refers to the firm's current assets minus its current liabilities. İn this study : 1. The factors must be considered when determining a firm's working capital policy are examined, 2. Four industry were selected from Turkey, 3. Applied policies were determined and searched the reasons of these applications. We start our analysis of working capital policy with the idea of liquidity. Liquidity is IX an important factor in determining a firm's working capital policy. It's a function of its current assets and liquidity levels, and composition, and its ability to raise cash when needed.The firm's ongoing liquidity is function of its cash cycle. As row materials are purchased, the firms current liabilities increase through accounts payable. Subsequently, the firm pays for this trade credit. At the same time the row materials are converted into finished goods through the production process. After reaching the finished goods inventory, they can be sold for cash or on credit. In the latter case accounts receivable are created. Finally, the accounts receivable are collected, resulting in cash. Liquidity is influenced by all aspects of the cash cycle since increases in purchases, inventories or receivables will decrease liquidity. A helpful way to look at the cash flow for the firm is to analyze the firm's cash conversion cycle. A cash conversion cycle reflects the net time interval in days between actual cash expenditures of the firm on productive resources and the ultimate recovery of cash. As shown in Figure 1, once of the puchase of the row materials is made, the inventory cash conversion period determines the average number of days it takes to produce and sell the product.The receivables conversion period determines the number of days it takes to collect credit.sales, the operating cycle, which is : operating cycle = inventory conversion period + receivables conversion period measures the total number of days from purchase to when cash is received. However becouse the row materials typically are not paid for immediately we must also determine how long the firm defers it's payments. The differance between the operating cycle and the payable deferral period is cash conversion cycle : cash conversion cycle = operating cycle - payable deferral period As the cash conversion cycle lenghtens, the firm's liquidity worsens ; as the cycle is shortened, the firm's liquidity improves. Purchase Sales Cash made on credit received T< inventory conversion * T< receivables conversion ?T period period i cash; outlay ?- payable deferral period j cash conversion cycle operating cycle Figure 1. Cash Flow Timing In order to determine cash conversion cycle, the following steps are employed Step 1 : Calculate the receivables turnover which is :,,. sales in credit receivable turnover = average accounts receivables Step 2 : Calculate the inventory turnover : inventory turnover = ^ of good sold average inventory Step 3 : Determine the payables turnover :.,,. cost of goods sold payables turnover = 2. average accounts payable Step 4 : Divide the three turnover ratios into 365 days to calculate the receivables conversion period, inventory conversion period, and payable deferral period These steps show that the cash cycle depends on the inventory, receivables, and payable periods. Take one at a time, the cash cycle increases as the inventory and receivable periods get longer. It decreases if the company is able to defer payment of payables and thereby lengthen the payables period. Most of firms have a positive cash cycle, and they thus require financing for inventories and receivables. The longer the cash cycle, the more financing required. Also, changes in the firm's cash cycle are often monitored as an early warning measure. A lengthening cycle can indicate that the firm is having trouble moving inventory or collecting on its receivables. The cash conversion cycle is a quick and convenient way to analyze the liquidity of the firm. A firm can manage its current assets and current liabilities aggressively or conservatively. The characteristics of these policies are as below : Characteristics of aggressive ability management : 1. High levels of current liabilities, 2. Low levels of current assets, 3. Short cash conversion cycle, 4. Lower interest costs if short term rates are lower than long term rates, 5. Lower expences and higher revenue, 6. Higher risk and higher return strategy. XI Characteristics of conservative management : 1. Low levels of current liabilities, 2. High levels of current assets, 3. Long cash conversion cycle, 4. Higher interest costs if long term rates are higher than short term rates, 5. Higher expences and lower revenue, 6. Lower risk and lower return strategy. The alternative working capital policy is matched strategy. The matching principle can be stated as follows : permanent investments in assets should be financed with permanent sources of financing,.and short term assets should be financed with short term liabilities. The short term financial policy that a firm adopts will be reflected in at least two ways: 1. The size of firm's investment in current assets : A flexible or accomodative short term financial policy would maintain a relatively high ratio of current assets to sales. A resrictive short term financial policy would entail a low ratio of current assets to sale. 2. The financing of the current assets : This is measured as the proportion short term dept and long term dept used to finance current assete A resrictive short term financial policy means a high proportion of short term debt to long term financing, and a flexible policy means less short term debt. If we take these two areas together, a firm with a flexible policy would have arelatively large investment in current assets. It would finance this investment with relatively less in short term debt. The net effect of flexible policy is thus a relatively high level of net working capital. Put another way, with a flexible policy, the firm maintains a larger overall level of liquidity. After these definitions ; four industry from Turkey were investigated. Tese industries are : 1. Metal Eşya Makine ve Gereç Yapım Sanayi, 2. Metal Ana Sanayi, 3. Taş ve Toprağa Dayalı Sanayi, 4. Kimya, Petrol, Kauçuk ve Plastik Sanayi. The ratios as given below ; determined for each industry : 1. Liquidity ratios : - Current ratio, - Acid-test ratio, 2. Turn overs : - Receivables turnover, - Inventory turnover, - Payable turnover, 3. Profitability : - Return on assets, - Return on equity, xii 4. Financial Leverage : - Short term liabilities/total liabilities, - Current assets/total assets, 5. Cash Conversion Cycle : - inventory conversion period, - Receivables conversion period, - Payable defferal period, - Operating cycle, - Cash conversion cycle. The means of these ratios were tested by using statistical methods Then the behaviour of industries on this subject were tried to be obtained These evaluations can be summarized as below : Table 1. Applied Policies in industries Cur.assets / Tot. Cur.liabilities/ Applied assets Tot. liabilities policy As we can easily understand from Table 1 : - Matched policy is applied in Metal Eşya Makine ve Gereç Yapım Sanayi, - Aggressive policy is applied in Metal Ana Sanayi, - Agressive policy is applied in Taş ve Toprağa Dayalı Sanayi, - And firms apply different policies in Kimya, Petrol, Kauçuk ve Plastik Sanayi.