Emil Fine

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Impact of Cash Conversion Cycle on Capital

Contents

  • Overview
  • Calculator
  • Example: Keurig Dr Pepper
  • Formulas
  • Industry Averages
  • Notes

Overview

Any business owner considering a financial institutions Treasury Service (TS) products is interested in the quantitative metrics on their bottomline. In this article I provide an easy plug-and-play calculator to determine the bottomline impact on free cash flow by changing TS components, specific to your financial situation. 

Definition 1: TS is how an entity or individual receives capital, maintains it, and spends it.

Definition 2: The Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) is the end-to-end cash flow through those three stages.

There are many ways TS products can impact the bottomline, but all will impact one of the three CCC components: Days Sales Outstanding (DSP), Days Inventory Outstanding (DIO), Days Payable Outstanding (DPO). 

Definition 3: CCC = DSO + DIO – DPO

Receiving your cash faster, and holding it on for a longer time is usually ideal for your business, therefore a shorter CCC is beneficial. That is achieved by a shorter DSO/DIO and a longer DPO. 

Calculator

Feel free to download my calculator from Google Sheets here.

Example – Keurig Dr Pepper

As an example, below is an analysis of Keurig Dr Pepper’s (KDP) free cash flow impact if we modify the CCC components.

By shortening the DSO by 1 day from 34 to 33, KDP can free up roughly $18 million in annual free cash flow. Inversely, by changing the DPO by 3 days, the impact is in the $22 million range.

These numbers are determined by changing the CCC components and summing up the results from the formulas below. 

 Formulas

Change in Accounts Receivables/Payables and Inventory per Change in Day(s) 

Industry Averages

Notes

  • This is a very simplified example and a more realistic situation would require additional analysis of credit, points, various ratios of product mix, supplier contracts, relationships and timing, just to name a few.
  • Numbers are based on public records of Keurig Dr Pepper 2016
  • Some numbers are rounded/estimated due to discrepancies in public records or time required to determine a more accurate number within a similar range
  • Credit for formulas goes to a public article by the American Chartered Bank (ACB)
  • Everything here was created during my free time and free public resources (i.e. yahoo finance, google, ACB, etc…)
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