ACC00724 Accounting for Managers

Dividends declared in 2006 were 8 cents per share and in 2007 10.5 cents per share.Calculate the Current ratio and the Quick ratio for 2007. Comment on the liquidity of this company.

For comparison purposes, other firms in this industry sector have an average Current ratio of 1.76 and an average Quick ratio of 0.78.

1. From the information provided about dividends and earnings and from the Cash flow statement and Balance sheet, comment on long term and short sources of finance that Super Cheap Auto has used to expand the business from 2006 to 2007.
2. Calculate a ratio that will tell you how many times a year Super Cheap Auto turns over its inventory in 2007 (or, calculate the ratio that tells you the number of days it takes to turn over inventory). Comment on this aspect of working capital management.
3. Do you think Super Cheap should borrow more money to expand faster Why Explain you reasoning.
4. Assuming a share price of $4.50, calculate a Price Earnings (PE) ratio and a Dividend Yield ratio for Super Cheap Auto. Interpret these ratios and comment on the value of shares in Super Cheap Auto, given that sector average PE is 16.7 and sector average dividend yield is 3.7%. What does this tell us about the market’s expectations about growth in Super Cheap Autos share price.
5. a) List 4 different types (groups) of people who are users of general purpose financial statements.

1. b) Select 2 different groups from your list in part a) then compare and contrast their financial information needs. Discuss the benefitsthey would gain by reading and analyzing the financial statements. What limitationsmight each group find with this source of information.

• Liquidity of a company show the ability of the company to pay off its current liabilities or ability of the company that how quickly the company can convert its assets into cash, so that short term obligations can be paid off. Liquidity can be measured through various ratios such as current ratio and quick ratio. However, taking the internal ratios would not show the true picture of the analysis, comparing the company’s ratios with the industry ratio is also equivalent important. Liquidity ratios include. 

1. Current Ratio= The first step in liquidity analysis is to calculate the current ratio. This ratio compares the current assets and current liabilities of the company and help in determining the company’s ability to pay off its current liabilities from its current assets. 

Current ratio =  Current Assets / Current Liabilities

Quick Ratio =  Quick Assets / Current Liabilities

Analysis

To analyze the company’s data, in 2007, the company’s current ratio was 1.72 times which shows that the company is able to generate $1.72 dollar to pay off its current liabilities of $1 as compared to 2016 where the company’s current ratio was 2.07. So, it shows that company’s current ratio has improved significantly and has reached to the level of industry’s average which is 1.76. It is a good sign for the company. The company’s quick asset ratio has decreased from 2006 by 0.07 times, in 2016 it was 0.27 whereas in 2017 it is 0.20. It means that liabilities have increased but assets have not been increased in the same ratio. The industry average for this ratio is 0.78. It shows that the company needs to increase its quick assets to maintain a good liquidity position. 

• Taking finance is a very important part for any business. Finance can be taken into 2 types depending upon the requirement of the company. It can be short term as well as long term. Short terms are those which are taken for less than one year whereas long term finance is taken for one or more year. To comment on finances, from cash flow statements, we can observe that the company has taken short term borrowings for an amount of $255,950 for expansion of its business. Further, it is observed that all the finance is taken in the form of short term borrowings as there is no change in the long term borrowings from last year. Further, there is no increase in equity portion as well. Further, the company has earned almost 135% of profit as compared to 2006. That’s why has EPS has improved resulting in higher dividend payout to shareholders. So, to summarize during the period from 2006 to 2007, the company has not taken any long term borrowings neither any equity finance is used. However, the company has taken some short term borrowings for meeting its requirements. 

• Inventory turnover is reflected by the inventory turnover ratio. This ratio shows the ability of the company to turn its inventory into cash. In 2007, the company’s inventory turnover ratio in days is 143 days approx. It means the company’s operating cycle is like this that it takes 143 days from procurement of material till its sales. This ratio is quite high and shows that the company’s working capital remains blocked for 143 days. The management should try to keep this ratio as low as possible as low ratio indicates that the company is able to generate cash quickly from its inventory and thus require less working capital. 

Inventory turnover ratio =  Cost of goods sold / average inventory

Inventory turnover period =  365 / Inventory turnover ratio 

Whether super cheap to borrow more money for expansion or not depends upon various factors. Some of them are discussed below:

1. 1. Growth rate– First of all, the management needs to check whether there are growth opportunities available in the market or not. It is feasible to expand more or the product is having more demand than supply. If the answer is yes, than the company should think over it.
   2. Management internal decisions– The management internal decisions as to expand or not also matters. If the management needs to expand the business, then the company should borrow the money.
   3. Cost of Finance– Secondly, the management needs to check the cost of finance of both equity as well as debt. If the cost of equity is more than the cost of debt, only than the company should go for financing through debt option.

In the current situation, we observed that since with little borrowings, the company’s profit has increased by almost 35% as compared to last year. It shows that there are growth opportunities available in the market. Now, the company needs to check the cost of borrowings, if the cost of debt is less than the cos of equity, then company should borrow the money to expand further. 

• Price earning ratiois the ratio which values company’s earnings with its market price and is calculated as follows,

Price earning ratio = Market Value per share / Earnings per share

= 4.50/21

= 0.214 times 

The company’s PE ratio for 2007 is 0.214 times whereas the industry average is 16.70 times. It shows that the company’s shares are undervalued in the market. In books, they are showing a value of $21 whereas in market these are at $4.50. 

Dividend yield ratio shows the dividend in comparison to its market price. It is calculated as,

Dividend Yield Ratio = Dividend Per share / Market Price per share

= 10.5 / 4.50

= 2.33 %

 Dividend yield ratio shows that how much an investor is getting with an investment of $1. For 217, the dividend yield ratio is 2.33 % which means that an investor is getting $2.33 against $1 invested in the business. The sector average for this ratio is 3.7%. This shows that the company should improve its dividend yield further.

• The four different users of the financial statements are listed below:
  1. Equity Shareholders
  2. Investors / Lenders
  3. Potential Investors / creditors / suppliers
  4. Government agencies and institutions 

• Equity Shareholdersare the owners of the company. They Require following information from the financials:
  1. Net Profit earned by the company
  2. Earnings per share / book value per share to determine their value of investments
  3. Details regarding cash flow to check the liquidity issues
  4. Investment made / borrowings taken etc. 

The benefit of reading financials by the shareholder is to make the long term investment decisions and to gain the overall information about the company so that they can take decisions as to they want to stay invested in the company or not. Further, it helps in analyzing the growth prospects in their investments. 

The limitation of this source of information is that the most of the shareholders are individual retail investors with minimal knowledge of accounts/ financials. This might result in improper understanding of results which might create chaos in their minds. Further, the financials can be window dressed by the management, so they might not reflect the true picture of the company. 

Investors / Lenders are those peoples who have provided the money for running business to the company, so they always remain concerned about their money. That’s why they need financials to check the health of the company. They require the information to check the following:

1. Uses of money provided and its safety
2. Liquidity status of the company
3. Repaying capacity or credit worthiness of the company
4. Solvency position of the company
5. Fulfillment of covenants or breach of covenants

The benefit of reading financials is to check the performance and profitability of the company and to ascertain the safety of finance prided by them and can decide whether to lend the funds to the company or not. Further, the covenants on which loan was provided to the company are getting fulfilled or not. As in the case of breach of covenants the lenders are eligible to take the money back from the company.

The limitation of this source of information is that the financials can be window dressed by the management and might not reflect the true picture of the business. Further, non-financials events are not covered by the financials and thus, the readers might not be able to know about these facts.

• 1. Shares issued to the public - Equity
  2. Inventory purchased last week - Asset
  3. Depreciation of equipment - Expense
  4. Provision for long service leave - Liability
  5. Excess payment to the tax department - Asset
  6. Shares owned in another company - Asset
  7. Accounts payable - Liability
  8. Prepaid insurance premiums - Asset
  9. Deposit paid by a customer for work yet to be done - Liability
  10. Credit sales - Income
  11. Cash sales - Income
  12. Retained profit - Equity
  13. Advertising - Expense
  14. Bad debts - Expense

Dividend declared, not yet paid.