3.5 DECISION MAKING TO IMPROVE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE Flashcards
Define ‘net profit’ / ‘operating profit’
Amount of money your business earns after deducting all operating, interest, and tax expenses over a given period of time.
Define ‘gross profit’
Profit after deducting costs associated with making and selling the products
- HIGH cost of sales = LOW gross profit
Define ‘profit’
The reward/return for taking risks and making investments
What are the two ways of measuring profit/return?
- Absolute: the £ value of profits earned
- Relative: difference between the absolute return and the performance of the market (or other similar investments) - COMPARE TO RELATIVE FIGURES
What is ratio analysis?
Analysing relationships between financial data to assess the performance of a business
What are the main profitability ratios?
- Gross profit margin
- Operating profit margin
- Return on capital employed
What is net profit margin / operating profit margin ?
- What is left after all costs have been taken from its sales revenue
- Percentage return made on sales
- Measure of firm’s profitability by looking at the relationship between net profit and sales revenue
What does operating profit tell us?
- How effective a business turns sales into profit
- To see if the business needs to be more profitable
What is a concern around cash flow?
It is dynamic and unpredictable, can change at any moment
Why create a cash flow forecast?
- Advanced warning for cash flow issues
- Makes sure the business have enough money to pay suppliers and employees
- Reassures investors that there is full control over finance
Equation for net cash flow
Inflows - outflows
When is breakeven output reached?
When…
Total revenues = total costs
Equation for breakeven output
Fixed costs / contribution per unit
Equation for contribution per unit
Revenue - Variable Costs
Define ‘margin of safety’
The amount sales can fall before the break-even point is reached and the business makes no profit
Equation for margin of safety
Difference between…
Actual Output and Breakeven Output
What does a positive margin of safety mean for a business?
Profitability
What does a negative margin of safety mean for a business?
Loss being made
BELOW THE BREAKEVEN POINT LINE, looking at how much more £££ needs to be made to reach the breakeven point
Ways to improve margin of safety
- Increase contribution per unit, by:
– Rising selling prices
– Reducing variable costs per unit - Lowering the breakeven output
– Lowering fixed costs
– Turning fixed costs into variable costs - Increase actual output
Define ‘contribution per unit’
Coverage of fixed costs
All sales revenue not consumed by variable costs
Define ‘breakeven output’
How many products need to be sold to reach breakeven point
Define ‘budget’
A financial plan for the future concerning revenues and costs of a business
How much you are allowed to spend on something
How do managers use budgeting?
- Set targets
- Provide direction
- Assign responsibilities
- Motivate staff
- Prevents overspending, keep within budget
Explain a good budgetary control
- Responsibilities clearly defined
- Make sure don’t go over the budget
- Corrective action taken if results differ from budget
Define ‘historic budgeting’
Use last year’s figures as basis of budget
Advantage of ‘historic budgeting’
- Realistic, based on actual results
Disadvantage of ‘historic budgeting’
- Circumstances may have changed
- Does not encourage efficiency
Define ‘zero budgeting’
- Budgeting costs set to zero
- Budget based on new proposals
AS YOU GO ALONG
Advantage of ‘zero budgeting’
- More realistic and up-to-date
Disadvantages of ‘zero budgeting’
- Time consuming
- More complicated
Define ‘management by exception’
Process of focusing on activities that require attention and ignoring those that appear to be running smoothly
How do variances make “Management by exception” easier?
Highlights areas of a business which don’t meet standards of the budgeting
Adverse = pay attention to these
Define ‘variances’
Difference between actual and budget figures
Define ‘variances’
Difference between actual and budget figures
Define ‘adverse variance’
NEGATIVE
Worse than expected
If actual is lower than budget
Define ‘favourable variance’
POSITIVE
Better than expected
If actual is higher than budget
What do variances depend on?
- What is foreseen
- Size of budget
- If temporary problem or result of long-term trend
How should a business act on variances?
- Act only if variance is outside of agreed margin, don’t waste time
- Investigate the cause
- Was it avoidable?
- Act to save the problem
In what way could an adverse variance be positive for a business?
- May be a result of something good that has happened to the business
(e.g.) higher production costs than budget occur because sales are higher than budget
Problems with budgeting
MAY BE BIAS?
- Can lead to inflexibility in decision making, as the business must remain within the budget
- Needs to be changed as the circumstances change
- Takes time to complete and manage
- Costs are subject to change
- Competitor actions unknown
- Managers may lack experience
- Takes time and effort: associated with opportunity costs
Behavioural Affects of Budgeting
- May create a ‘use it or lose it’ approach amongst businesses, costing the business
- De-motivating if not negotiated, stakeholders may not agree with it
- Department rivalry, battles over budget allocation
Suggest some internal sources of finance
- Retained profit
- Rationalisation - through selling assets
- Owner investment
Suggest some external sources of finance
- Debt factoring
- Overdrafts
- Share capital
- Loans
- Venture capital
- Crowdfunding
Advantages of ‘retained profit’
- Avoids interest repayments
- Doesn’t dilute business ownership
- Increase share price
- Improve financial safety net