Assessing A New Venture's Financial Strength and Viability: ©2010 Pearson Education
Assessing A New Venture's Financial Strength and Viability: ©2010 Pearson Education
• Financial Management
– Financial management deals with two things: raising
money and managing a company’s finances in a way that
achieves the highest rate of return
– This chapter focuses on raising money. This chapter
focuses primarily on:
• How a new venture tracks its financial progress through preparing,
analyzing, and maintaining past financial statements.
• How a new venture forecasts future income and expenses by
preparing pro forma (or projected) financial statements.
• Profitability
– Is the ability to earn a profit.
• Many start-ups are not profitable during their first one to three years
while they are training employees and building their brands.
• However, a firm must become profitable to remain viable and
provide a return to its owners.
• Liquidity
– Is a company’s ability to meet its short-term financial
obligations.
• Even if a firm is profitable, it is often a challenge to keep enough
money in the bank to meet its routine obligations in a timely manner.
• Efficiency
– Is how productively a firm utilizes its assets relative to its
revenue and its profits.
• Southwest Airlines, for example, uses its assets very productively.
Its turnaround time, or the time its airplanes sit on the ground while
they are being unloaded and reloaded, is the lowest in the airline
industry.
• Stability
– Is the strength and vigor of the firm’s overall financial
posture.
• For a firm to be stable, it must not only earn a profit and remain
liquid but also keep its debt in check.
• Forecasts (continued)
– New ventures typically base their forecasts on an estimate
of sales and then on industry averages or the experiences of
similar start-ups regarding the cost of goods sold and other
expenses.
• Budgets
– Are itemized forecasts of a company’s income, expenses,
and capital needs and are also an important tool for
financial planning and control.
• Financial Ratios
– Depict relationships between items on a firm’s financial
statements.
– An analysis of its financial ratios helps a firm determine
whether it is meeting its financial objectives and how it
stakes up against industry peers.
• Importance of Financial Management
– Many experienced entrepreneurs stress the importance of
keeping on top of the financial management of the firm.
• Ratio Analysis
– The most practical way to interpret or make sense of a
firm’s historical financial statements is through ratio
analysis, as shown in the next slide.
• Comparing a Firm’s Financial Results to Industry
Norms
– Comparing a firm’s financial results to industry norms
helps a firm determine how it stakes up against its
competitors and if there are any financial “red flags”
requiring attention.
• Forecasts
– The analysis of a firm’s historical financial statements are
followed by the preparation of forecasts.
– Forecasts are predictions of a firm’s future sales, expenses,
income, and capital expenditures.
• A firm’s forecasts provide the basis for its pro forma financial
statements.
• A well-developed set of pro forma financial statements helps a firm
create accurate budgets, build financial plans, and manage its
finances in a proactive rather than a reactive manner.