Many observers have remarked that accounting techniques can give favorable shadings to almost every balance sheet or income statement entry–but they can’t do anything about cash. Therefore, they conclude, analyze the changes in cash and you can most accurately assess the strategy a company is taking and the profits a company is making.
Analyzing cash as a component of working capital
I think this is right, but analyzing cash–which means looking at the sources and uses of funds–is a little more complex than just looking at the “cash” item in Current Assets. For working capital purposes, though, there are only a few things to look for to make sure you get an accurate picture of the changes, + or -, in the cash a company is holding:
Three rules
1. Count all the cash. Cash in a checking account (cash) and T-bills (short-term investments) will certainly appear in Current Assets. But if the company has cash it knows it won’t need for a while, it may also buy Treasury securities that mature in more than twelve months. They’ll be in the long-term section of the balance sheet, as Long-Term Investments. Count them, too (you may have to check the footnotes to the balance sheet to make sure the company hasn’t mixed in equity holdings in joint venture projects, or other “real” investments that shouldn’t be counted as cash.).
2. Look for a buildup in financial liabilities and subtract it, if there is one. Check for increases in payables and short-term debt and long-term debt. Also make sure there hasn’t been an equity issue. All of these items will generate cash, but adding liquidity from new debt or new equity isn’t the same as adding it from operations. It’s highly unusual for a company to issue a special cash dividend to use up extra cash (WYNN is the only firm I’m aware of to do so recently), but you might look for that and add it back in. Personally, I wouldn’t add back in stock repurchases, although firms present these as a “return” of cash to shareholders, since they typically only offset (as well as disguise) the company’s issuance of stock to top management.
3. Think twice about negative working capital companies. When negative working capital companies have increasing sales, they generate excess cash, just due to the fact that customers pay for the product/service either in advance or before the company has to pay its suppliers. Often, these companies will use the excess cash to fund capital expenditures, believing that they will continue to grow and generate larger amounts of cash. That’s the highest probability case. But there’s always the risk that revenues will stagnate, or even begin to decline–in which case the business will begin to absorb cash rather than throw it off. One adjustment for the cash position of negative working capital companies would be to calculate payables minus receivables and subtract the difference from cash.