Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic Science (Jul 2014)
FINANCIAL INDICATORS IN MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING
Abstract
Working capital is crucial to determine the short-term financial position of a given company. Significant changes in working capital provide important information to the stakeholders. Working capital analysis is one of the methods of credit rating and it can also help to better understand the business cycle of a given company. One of the key elements of working capital management is liquidity management, that is, to maintain a company’s ability to pay continuously, because in the short-term, it ensures the company to stay afloat, and justifies its progress on the long-term. Decision makers are in need of such indicators and interrelations that can help precisely assessing the real situation and recognise problems of funding in time. Achieving this goal is a very complex task because the use of several indicators and perspectives are necessary to measure liquidity. For this, companies have to develop management and organizational structures that provide an adequate framework to measure and follow up liquidity. To facilitate this, the study draws attention to interrelations that anticipate the actual liquidity position of a company more precisely. Generally, liquidity indicators are being used to measure a company’s ability to pay, but those do not sufficiently take into account for how long different components are tied up during the operation. Adjusted liquidity indicators can be calculated to solve these problems as these include the time an asset is in the operating cycle in the case of current assets and short-term liabilities. At the same time, these days the continuous monitoring and analysis of operational data has become essential, too. The database which has been created as a result of the annual financial statement reporting obligation that was introduced by the Act C in 2000 can be used to analyse company data on a yearly basis. However, in case we would like to examine the changes of these indicators continuously during the financial year, we need (monthly or quarterly) data and the introduction of a proper accounting information system for the managers to continuously receive those processed data that are essential for decision making, and to receive information about the performance of their department. This study’s aim is to show the difference between the consequences of company liquidity results using only year-end data and when liquidity indicators are being adjusted on a monthly basis
