A common use of financial ratios is when a lender determines the stability and health of your business by looking at your balance sheet. The balance sheet provides a portrait of what your company owns or is owed (assets) and what it owes (liabilities). Bankers will often make financial ratios a part of your business loan agreement. For instance, you may have to keep your equity above a certain percentage of your debt, or your current assets above a certain percentage of your current liabilities.
But ratios should not be evaluated only when visiting your banker. Ideally, you should review your ratios on a monthly basis to keep on top of changing trends in your company. Although there are different terms for different ratios, they fall into 4 basic categories.
Liquidity ratios
These measure the amount of liquidity (cash and easily converted assets) that you have to cover your debts, and provide a broad overview of your financial health.
The current ratio measures your company's ability to generate cash to meet your short-term financial commitments. Also called the working capital ratio, it is calculated by dividing your current assets—such as cash, inventory and receivables—by your current liabilities, such as line of credit balance, payables and current portion of long-term debts.
The quick ratio measures your ability to access cash quickly to support immediate demands. Also known as the acid test, the quick ratio divides current assets (excluding inventory) by current liabilities (excluding current portion of long-term debts). A ratio of 1.0 or greater is generally acceptable, but this can vary depending on your industry.
A comparatively low ratio can mean that your company might have difficulty meeting your obligations and may not be able to take advantage of opportunities that require quick cash. Paying off your liabilities can improve this ratio; you may want to delay purchases or consider long-term borrowing to repay short-term debt. You may also want to review your credit policies with clients and possibly adjust them to collect receivables more quickly.
A higher ratio may mean that your capital is being underutilized and could prompt you to invest more of your capital in projects that drive growth, such as innovation, product or service development, R&D or international marketing.
But what constitutes a healthy ratio varies from industry to industry. For example, a clothing store will have goods that quickly lose value because of changing fashion trends. Still, these goods are easily liquidated and have high turnover. As a result, small amounts of money continuously come in and go out, and in a worst-case scenario liquidation is relatively simple. This company could easily function with a current ratio close to 1.0.
On the other hand, an airplane manufacturer has high-value, non-perishable assets such as work-in-progress inventory, as well as extended receivable terms. Businesses like these need carefully planned payment terms with customers; the current ratio should be much higher to allow for coverage of short-term liabilities.
Efficiency ratios
Often measured over a 3- to 5-year period, these give additional insight into areas of your business such as collections, cash flow and operational results.
Inventory turnover looks at how long it takes for inventory to be sold and replaced during the year. It is calculated by dividing total purchases by average inventory in a given period. For most inventory-reliant companies, this can be a make-or-break factor for success. After all, the longer the inventory sits on your shelves, the more it costs.
Assessing your inventory turnover is important because gross profit is earned each time such turnover occurs. This ratio can enable you to see where you might improve your buying practices and inventory management. For example, you could analyze your purchasing patterns as well as your clients to determine ways to minimize the amount of inventory on hand. You might want to turn some of the obsolete inventory into cash by selling it off at a discount to specific clients. This ratio can also help you see if your levels are too low and you're missing out on sales opportunities.
Inventory to net working capital ratio can determine if you have too much of your working capital tied up in inventory. It is calculated by dividing inventory by total current assets. In general, the lower the ratio, the better. Improving this ratio will allow you to invest more working capital in growth-driven projects such as export development, R&D and marketing.
Evaluating inventory ratios depends a great deal on your industry and the quality of your inventory. Ask yourself: Are your goods seasonal (such as ski equipment), perishable (food) or prone to becoming obsolete (fashion)? Depending on the answer, these ratios will vary a great deal. Still, regardless of the industry, inventory ratios can you help you improve your business efficiency.
Average collection period looks at the average number of days customers take to pay for your products or services. It is calculated by dividing receivables by total sales and multiplying by 365. To improve how quickly you collect payments, you may want to establish clearer credit policies and set collection procedures. For example, to encourage your clients to pay on time, you can give them incentives or discounts. You should also compare your policies to those of your industry to ensure you remain competitive.
Profitability ratios
These ratios are used not only to evaluate the financial viability of your business, but are essential in comparing your business to others in your industry. You can also look for trends in your company by comparing the ratios over a certain number of years.
Net profit margin measures how much a company earns (usually after taxes) relative to its sales. A company with a higher profit margin than its competitor is usually more efficient, flexible and able to take on new opportunities.
Operating profit margin, also known as coverage ratio, measures earnings before interest and taxes. The results can be quite different from the net profit margin due to the impact of interest and tax expenses. By analyzing this margin, you can better assess your ability to expand your business through additional debt or other investments.
Return on assets (ROA) ratio tells how well management is utilizing the company's various resources (assets). It is calculated by dividing net profit (before taxes) by total assets. The number will vary widely across different industries. Capital-intensive industries such as railways will yield a low return on assets, since they need expensive infrastructure to do business. Service-based operations such as consulting firms will have a high ROA, as they require minimal hard assets to operate.
Return on equity (ROE) measures how well the business is doing in relation to the investment made by its shareholders. It tells the shareholders how much the company is earning for each of their invested dollars. It is calculated by dividing a company’s earnings after taxes (EAT) by the total shareholders’ equity, and multiplying the result by 100%.
A common analysis tool for profitability ratios is cross-sectional analysis, which compares ratios of several companies from the same industry. For instance, your business may have experienced a downturn in its net profit margin of 10% over the last 3 years, which may seem worrying. However, if your competitors have experienced an average downturn of 21%, your business is performing relatively well. Nonetheless, you will still need to analyze the underlying data to establish the cause of the downturn and create solutions for improvement.
Leverage ratios
These ratios provide an indication of the long-term solvency of a company and to what extent you are using long-term debt to support your business.
Debt-to-equity and debt-to-asset ratios are used by bankers to see how your assets are financed, whether it comes from creditors or your own investments, for example. In general, a bank will consider a lower ratio to be a good indicator of your ability to repay your debts or take on additional debt to support new opportunities.
Accessing and calculating ratios
To determine your ratios, you can use a variety of online tools such as BDC's ratio calculators, although your financial advisor, accountant and banker may already have the most currently used ratios on hand.
For a fee, industry-standard data is available from a variety of sources, both printed and online, including Dun & Bradstreet's Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios, RMA's Annual Statement Studies and Statistics Canada (search for Financial Performance Indicators for Canadian Business). Industry Canada's SME Benchmarking Tool offers basic financial ratios by industry, based on Statistics Canada small business profiles.
Interpreting your ratios
Ratios will vary from industry to industry and over time. Interpreting them requires knowledge of your business, your industry and the reasons for fluctuations. In this light, BDC experts offer sound advice, which can help you interpret and improve your financial performance.
Beyond the numbers
It's important to keep in mind that ratios are only one way to determine your financial performance. Beyond what industry a company is in, location can also be important. Regional differences in factors such as labor or shipping costs may also affect the result and the significance of a ratio. Sound financial analysis always entails closely examining the data used to establish the ratios as well as assessing the circumstances that generated the results.
Solvency and liquidity are both terms that refer to an enterprise's state of financial health, but with some notable differences.
Solvency refers to an enterprise's capacity to meet its long-term financial commitments. Liquidity refers to an enterprise's ability to pay short-term obligations—the term also refers to a company's capability to sell assets quickly to raise cash.
- Solvency and liquidity are both important for a company's financial health and an enterprise's ability to meet its obligations.
- Liquidity refers to both an enterprise's ability to pay short-term bills and debts and a company's capability to sell assets quickly to raise cash.
- Solvency refers to a company's ability to meet long-term debts and continue operating into the future.
A company with adequate liquidity will have enough cash available to pay its ongoing bills in the short run. Here are some of the most popular liquidity ratios:
Current ratio = Current assets / Current liabilities
The current ratio measures a company's ability to pay off its current liabilities (payable within one year) with its current assets such as cash, accounts receivable, and inventories. The higher the ratio, the better the company's liquidity position.
Quick ratio = (Current assets – Inventories) / Current liabilities
OR
Quick ratio = (Cash and equivalents + Marketable securities + Accounts receivable) / Current liabilities
The quick ratio measures a company's ability to meet its short-term obligations with its most liquid assets and therefore excludes inventories from its current assets. It is also known as the "acid-test ratio."
Days sales outstanding (DSO) = (Accounts receivable / Total credit sales) x Number of days in sales
Days sales outstanding, or DSO, refers to the average number of days it takes a company to collect payment after it makes a sale. A higher DSO means that a company is taking unduly long to collect payment and is tying up capital in receivables. DSOs are generally calculated quarterly or annually.
A solvent company is one that owns more than it owes; in other words, it has a positive net worth and a manageable debt load. While liquidity ratios focus on a firm's ability to meet short-term obligations, solvency ratios consider a company's long-term financial wellbeing. Here are some of the most popular solvency ratios.
Debt to equity = Total debt / Total equity
The debt-to-equity (D/E) ratio indicates the degree of financial leverage (DFL) being used by the business and includes both short-term and long-term debt. A rising debt-to-equity ratio implies higher interest expenses, and beyond a certain point, it may affect a company's credit rating, making it more expensive to raise more debt.
Debt to assets = Total debt / Total assets
Another leverage measure, the debt-to-assets ratio measures the percentage of a company's assets that have been financed with debt (short-term and long-term). A higher ratio indicates a greater degree of leverage, and consequently, financial risk.
Interest coverage ratio = Operating income (or EBIT) / Interest expense
The interest coverage ratio measures the company's ability to meet the interest expense on its debt, which is equivalent to its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). The higher the ratio, the better the company's ability to cover its interest expense.
There are key points that should be considered when using solvency and liquidity ratios. This includes using both sets of ratios—liquidity and solvency—to get the complete picture of a company's financial health; making this assessment on the basis of just one set of ratios may provide a misleading depiction of its finances.
As well, it's necessary to compare apples to apples. These ratios vary widely from industry to industry. A comparison of financial ratios for two or more companies would only be meaningful if they operate in the same industry.
Finally, it's necessary to evaluate trends. Analyzing the trend of these ratios over time will enable you to see if the company's position is improving or deteriorating. Pay particular attention to negative outliers to check if they are the result of a one-time event or indicate a worsening of the company's fundamentals.
Solvency and liquidity are equally important, and healthy companies are both solvent and possess adequate liquidity. A number of liquidity ratios and solvency ratios are used to measure a company's financial health, the most common of which are discussed below.
Let's use some of these liquidity and solvency ratios to demonstrate their effectiveness in assessing a company's financial condition.
Consider two hypothetical companies, Liquids Inc. and Solvents Co., with the following assets and liabilities on their balance sheets (figures in millions of dollars). We assume that both companies operate in the same manufacturing sector, i.e., industrial glues and solvents.
Balance Sheet (in millions of dollars) |
Liquids Inc. |
Solvents Co. |
Cash |
$5 |
$1 |
Marketable securities |
$5 |
$2 |
Accounts receivable |
$10 |
$2 |
Inventories |
$10 |
$5 |
Current assets (a) |
$30 |
$10 |
Plant & equipment (b) |
$25 |
$65 |
Intangible assets (c) |
$20 |
$0 |
Total assets (a + b + c) |
$75 |
$75 |
Current liabilities* (d) |
$10 |
$25 |
Long-term debt (e) |
$50 |
$10 |
Total liabilities (d + e) |
$60 |
$35 |
Shareholders' equity |
$15 |
$40 |
*In our example, we assume that "current liabilities" only consist of accounts payable and other liabilities, with no short-term debt. Since both companies are assumed to have only long-term debt, this is the only debt included in the solvency ratios shown below. If they did have short-term debt (which would show up in current liabilities), this would be added to long-term debt when computing the solvency ratios.
- Current ratio = $30 / $10 = 3.0
- Quick ratio = ($30 – $10) / $10 = 2.0
- Debt to equity = $50 / $15 = 3.33
- Debt to assets = $50 / $75 = 0.67
- Current ratio = $10 / $25 = 0.40
- Quick ratio = ($10 – $5) / $25 = 0.20
- Debt to equity = $10 / $40 = 0.25
- Debt to assets = $10 / $75 = 0.13
We can draw a number of conclusions about the financial condition of these two companies from these ratios.
Liquids Inc. has a high degree of liquidity. Based on its current ratio, it has $3 of current assets for every dollar of current liabilities. Its quick ratio points to adequate liquidity even after excluding inventories, with $2 in assets that can be converted rapidly to cash for every dollar of current liabilities. However, financial leverage based on its solvency ratios appears quite high.
Debt exceeds equity by more than three times, while two-thirds of assets have been financed by debt. Note, as well, that close to half of non-current assets consist of intangible assets (such as goodwill and patents). As a result, the ratio of debt to tangible assets—calculated as ($50 / $55)—is 0.91, which means that over 90% of tangible assets (plant and equipment, inventories, etc.) have been financed by borrowing. To summarize, Liquids Inc. has a comfortable liquidity position, but it has a dangerously high degree of leverage.
Solvents Co. is in a different position. The company's current ratio of 0.4 indicates an inadequate degree of liquidity with only $0.40 of current assets available to cover every $1 of current liabilities. The quick ratio suggests an even more dire liquidity position, with only 20 cents of liquid assets for every $1 of current liabilities. But financial leverage appears to be at comfortable levels, with debt at only 25% of equity and only 13% of assets financed by debt.
Even better, the company's asset base consists wholly of tangible assets, which means that Solvents Co.'s ratio of debt to tangible assets is about one-seventh that of Liquids Inc. (approximately 13% vs. 91%). Overall, Solvents Co. is in a dangerous liquidity situation, but it has a comfortable debt position.
A liquidity crisis can arise even at healthy companies if circumstances come about that make it difficult for them to meet short-term obligations such as repaying their loans and paying their employees.
The best example of such a far-reaching liquidity catastrophe in recent memory is the global credit crunch of 2007–09. Commercial paper—short-term debt that is issued by large companies to finance current assets and pay off current liabilities—played a central role in this financial crisis.
A near-total freeze in the $2 trillion U.S. commercial paper market made it exceedingly difficult for even the most solvent companies to raise short-term funds at that time and hastened the demise of giant corporations such as Lehman Brothers and General Motors (GM).
But unless the financial system is in a credit crunch, a company-specific liquidity crisis can be resolved relatively easily with a liquidity injection, as long as the company is solvent. This is because the company can pledge some assets if it is required to raise cash to tide over the liquidity squeeze. This route may not be available for a company that is technically insolvent since a liquidity crisis would exacerbate its financial situation and force it into bankruptcy.
Insolvency, however, indicates a more serious underlying problem that generally takes longer to work out, and it may necessitate major changes and radical restructuring of a company's operations. Management of a company faced with an insolvency will have to make tough decisions to reduce debt, such as closing plants, selling off assets, and laying off employees.
Going back to the earlier example, although Solvents Co. has a looming cash crunch, its low degree of leverage gives it considerable "wiggle room." One available option is to open a secured credit line by using some of its non-current assets as collateral, thereby giving it access to ready cash to tide over the liquidity issue. Liquids Inc., while not facing an imminent problem, could soon find itself hampered by its huge debt load, and it may need to take steps to reduce debt as soon as possible.