TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4 Role Of Accounting And Finance Department ..........................................................................................................................................................3 Ratio Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………..7 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11 REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13 1
Executive Summary The aim of the report is to bring an understanding of accounting and finance importance in an organisation. Importance of concepts have been discussed relating to the type of company chosen. Financial ratios to grasp a better understanding used in company’s valuation and performance comparison with previous year help in getting a clear picture of company’s financial strengths and weaknesses. 2
INTRODUCTION The study revolves around importance of accounts and finance department and its techniques to help an organisation respond well to financial matters. Skanska Plc is a UK Construction company which is operating since 1887 and started by manufacturing concrete products. Skanska since then has diversified in an international construction company and has played a pivotal role for the infrastructure growth in Sweden. The study will also evaluate financial ratios to have a better understanding of company’s performance since previous year and areas to work on. Role Of Accounting And Finance Department Accounts as the name suggests keeps the record of money going in and out of the business. It prepares financial statements such as general ledgers, Balance sheet, Profit and loss statement etc. to book the entries of financial transactions occurring within a fixed period say annually or quarterly. These statements can be used for internal analysis of the company by the management and also by shareholders who want to invest in the company (Brooks and Oikonomou,2018). Finance department is responsible for management of cash through means of employing capital, acquiring funds, managing funds within organisation’s other departments and planning for asset acquisition for company as per future requirements. It has to manage the balance of equity and debt for the company so as to maintain solvency of the company. It uses a number of techniques to evaluate cash flows and calculating rate of return for better investment on projects. Importance of Accounting Department Accounting within an organization is necessary to keep a track of money spent on production,overheadexpenses,promotionalexpensesetc.Someadvantagesof accounting are: a)It helps in knowing how well the business is performing, who are the major source of funding for business and who are its debtors. b)Company abides by rules and regulations and follows statutory compliance and thus avoids penalties by following rules of accounting. 3
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c)It helps in budgeting and financial ratios depict the state which has to be given more attention to. The underperforming segment in the organisation is found out and accordingly budget is allocated to bring improvement. d)Accounting helps in filing financial statements at Registrar Office, at stock exchanges where they are listed and for filing of taxes. There are varied types of industries operating in commerce and thus accounting may differ in some cases for them. Skanska being a construction company has its own way of evaluating accounting techniques which suits its requirements for the type of industry it operates in (Cockcroft and Russell, 2018). There are although some common parameters in every organisation to assess and which are also of importance to shareholders infinancial accounting functionwhich are: a)Income statement: It lists all the gains on cost of goods sold and also expenses whether variableorfixedwithoverheadscountedin.Thenetprofitorlossdisplaysthe performance in profitability for the term, quarterly or annually. b)Balance Sheet: It comprises of company’s assets and liabilities. Further it details into current assets and current liabilities which help see the investors company’s current liquidity and solvency in the market. Net working Capital can also be calculated with its help which is necessary for company’s operations (Brooks and Oikonomou,2018). c)Ledgers: Also called general ledgers, it records transactions in debit and credit for the company. Debit records all the transactions coming in and credit all the transactions going out for the company. Management accountingcovers cash flows and rate of return on investment projects. It also prepares budget to be allocated to various departments. d)Cash flow statement: Cash inflow and outflow are two aspects involved in accounting which helps to know the source of funds, the expenditures and costs involved, company’s payables and account receivables are known. It thus helps in knowing net cash available for company’s operations. e)Budget: It is prepared using previous year financials and ratios to judge the amount allocation to each department and make provisions for the underperforming department. 4
Audit Function A company has to abide by rules and regulations while performing its operations. Audit in Skanska sees to it that compliance is being followed with statutory rules to avoid penalties. Companies have their internal auditors who judge the operational reports and find out any errors which may have crept in. The executives are informed to rectify the errors before the external audit takes place. They also check for accuracy in financial statements and also have a look at the company’s goals whether any change in policies is required to help company achieve its objectives (Fischer-Pauzenberger and Schwaiger, 2017). As discussed above, there are some aspects related to construction accounting which differ in calculation of financials listed below: Job Costing Skanska being a construction company has contracts which employs a variety of projects or jobs. It can become a complex process to account them in one go as all are having different set of costs and expenses. Job Costing helps to account all the direct, indirect expenses along with revenue of each job separately thus eliminating confusion. This has helped the company to cover up all overhead expenses while determining profitability for each project. This organised way helps company’s internal accountants to easily review the financial statements and make tax filing easier (Cockcroft and Russell, 2018). Cash basis Cash basis accounting has benefitted Skanska to record revenue and expenses as and when they come in a contract which has simplified the process of keeping records although the expenses have to be distributed evenly throughout the years if it is a multi-year contract. Percentage of Completion A contract has varying length and as such matching final revenues and expenses is a bit difficult task. Here arrives the tool of Percentage of Completion used in Skanska which helps the business come over this hurdle. There is an estimation of expenses made on a particular job in the project 5
and then the actual expenses incurred in completion of the job is taken which is divided by the former to get the profit or loss occurred. This helps to see whether a project is on the right track or not. If there is a profit it is multiplied by percentage of completion of project till yet to get the estimated gross profit. This has shown good results with not much deviation. Tax function Tax Strategies Construction companies like Skanska have a difference in tax reporting as per approaches. For completed contracts, income and expenses are recorded after the job is completed which allows to defer taxes until project completion. However, Percentage of Completion is a better approach to combat tax fluctuations which records income and expenses as per year received. Companies get to defer taxes too with permission from Internal Revenue Service (Floyd and List, 2016). Importance of Finance Finance in any business plays prominent role in acquiring, managing and allocating funds to various departments in the organisation. Financial planning requires methods and techniques which are duly followed to get results for the organisation. The functions within finance are as follows: a)Investment function Managers decide how to raise capital for company’s operations in Skanska. Company can launch its IPOs, issue bonds and debentures in market to raise capital for company’s operations. Skanska managers see to it that there is a balance of equity and debt as relying more on debt can raise solvency issues in future (Loughran and McDonald, 2016). Debt can be in a form of bank loan from company’s bank, a group giving credit etc. b)Financing function As business is generating revenues per day, it is necessary to rightly put money in areas like pending payments, bills, finance for equipment and raw materials, for machinery, paying the labour, suppliersalong with delegating funds to various sections within the organisation. Skanska with a good operating finance software is able to delegate funds in the right sections and 6
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able to maintain daily records. Previous financials are also used to match the funds delegated in increase or decrease mode. c)Dividend function Skanska has to pay its investors certain amount of profits it generates on an annual basis. The managers decide the amount to be given through calculations as per the stake of the shareholder. This is dividend money which is taken out of gross profit generated. As the number of investors are large in number, financial calculations are done with help of technology to allocate the funds correctly. d)Working Capital function Skanska manages its working capital in a way that neither there is excess funds reported nor there is a shortage of cash. Excess funds will mean the resources are not being optimally utilized which is required for conducting day to day operations. Resources optimally utilised will generate profits. Lower funds will mean company is not able to manage money for daily operations and liquidity of the company is low (Floyd and List, 2016). Ratio Analysis Ratios20182019 ROCE=OperatingProfit/Total Assets-Current Liabilities*100 750/(2955-645)*100= 32.46975/(6000-2220)*100=25.79 NetProfitMargin=Net Profit/Sales*100 600/4800*100=16.66675/6000*100= 11.25 CurrentRatio=Current Assets/Current Liabilities 1515/645=2.342070/2220=0.93 DebtorsCollection Period=Receivables/Sales*365 900/4800*365=68.431200/6000*365=73 CreditorsPayment Period=Payables/Purchases*365 570/2700*365=77.052100/4800*365=159.68 7
Return On Capital Employed This ratio depicts a company’s profitability as to how well the capital has been employed to generate earnings. Operating Profit is taken as numerator which is got by deducting operating expenses from gross profit. It is also known as Earnings before Interest and tax on the company depicting the amount company earns from its operations (Loughran and McDonald, 2016). EBIT is calculated as revenue minus cost of sales plus the operating expenses. The capital employed is taken out as current liabilities minus from total assets as the liabilities have to be paid off and thus cannot be counted as capital. Some analysts consider taking the average capital employed which is the average of opening and closing capital employed for a period or term. As ROCE takes into consideration shareholder’s equity with long term debt as capital employed it helps in better financial comparison of companies having a prominent debt. It talks of revenue generated per $1 of capital employed. Companies who have a stable or rising ROCE are generally preferred by investors rather than the ones whose ROCE is lower. Speaking of Skanska its ROCE has lowered in 2019 form 2018 which means less profitability for the investors. Although Operating profit has risen with sales going up, but a significant increase has been seen in total assets and current liabilities. With increase in a/c payables, the current liabilities have increased. An increase in assets is a good sign but it could also contain long term debt for the company. Secondly, the optimum utilisation of assets is required here to generate a significant increase in operating profits or EBIT. Then it will help company to generate a better ROCE. Investors who are looking forward to invest will be concerned more in the increase in operating profits than assets as higher the operating profit, higher will be the ROCE. Net profit margin The ratio shows the net profit or income generated from revenue shown in percentage terms and sometimes in decimal. It is calculated by taking net profit as gross profit minus the operating expenses and again minus the interest and taxes. This is also known as net earnings or revenue 8
which has transformed itself into profits. The denominator is sales or revenue and reflects on per dollar value of revenue which has become profit for the company. This margin shows how well the company has covered up its operational costs and generated income. Net profit shows whether a company’s operations are going in right direction or not. It signifies if a company needs to decrease its operational expenses (Mburayi and Wall, 2018). Investors see from the financials if the profit has been increasing and company being able to generate returns from revenue and able to cover up operational and overhead expenses. Net profit being expressed in percentage helps to compare company with different operational sizes as well. Speaking of Skanska it can be seen that net profit has declined in 2019 from the previous year which is not a good sign as this reflects company’s earnings going down. From the balance sheet it can be seen that overhead expenses like purchases have gone up significantly with a slight increase in operational expenses. Company will have to boost up sales and try to reduce operational expenses while seeing to it that purchases are controlled by cutting down on items not coming useful in the process. Although there is a decline in net profits an increase in gross profit is seen in 2019 which means if thecompany takes right measures it will be able to cover up its overhead expenses in next year assessment. Current ratio It falls under the heading of liquidity ratios and depicts company’s current assets and current liabilities. It shows whether a company is able to pay its short-term obligations within a year and also to maximize company’s current assets to balance its current liabilities and debts which will also help increase its net working capital (McLaney and Atrill, 2016). Current assets are those which have to be used or sold within a year to suit ongoing operations. They include cash, cash equivalent, account receivables, stock inventory, marketable securities etc. Current liabilities are those which have to be paid off within a year such as short-term debt, accounts payables, notes payable etc. Current ratio in ideal situation would be one stating that company can cover its current liabilities fully with its current assets. A higher current ratio than 1 is also acceptable showing company’s current liquidity but a much higher ratio will mean company is not able to manage its utilisation of assets effectively. 9
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Skanska has a decline in current ratio since 2018 which is not a good sign for the company’s liquidity position as the ratio has gone below 1. It means company’s current assets are less than current liabilities. Earlier the ratio was below 3 meaning good for company’s liquidity as well as optimum utilisation of company’s assets. It can be seen despite growth achieved in current assets cash in hand has declined and trade payables have increased significantly adding up to the current liabilities. Company will have to generate methods to increase cash to help pay off the payables. Investors generally prefer current ratio higher than 1. Skanska will have to work on increasing current assets to increase current ratio and hence attract investment. Debtors Collection Period The amount of time taken to collect receivables from debtors is known as debtors collection period (Mburayi and Wall, 2018). The less time taken for debt recovery better it is for the company to increase its cash segment and utilise it for company’s operations or maybe paying the company’s credit. The denominator taken to calculate the ratio is sales as on the sales generated how fast is the recovery rate of receivables. As sales is taken on an annual basis the resultant of numerator and sales is multiplied by 365.It is thus denoted in days. A company when doing an order of goods in advance or issuing debt knows the time line in which to recover debt. If the receivables are collected in the time period it will show the efficiency of the company. Speaking of Skanska it can be seen that a slight increase in debtors collection period has been since 2018. A higher collection period will mean company having less cash at present moment than the standard terms. Although not much of an increase is there which will prevent deterrence of investors. Investors are looking for investment where the company doesn’t have much pending payments as it can hamper their dividend payments at the right time. Creditors Payment Period It can be said as the ratio which depicts the time taken by the business to settle trade credits thus mentionedalsoasaccountpayables.Thecalculationismadeonayearlybasisasthe denominator in the ratio is purchases done by the company on a yearly basis (McLaney and Atrill, 2016). The company has to make use of credit for its operations and also ethically pay its 10
dues on time to earn or maintain its reputation with its creditors. If a company is paying its dues timely that shows the liquidity position of the company to be good. Speaking of Skanska its payment period has increased more than double in 2019 with a significant increase in account payables as well as purchases. Also it means company is taking up longer to pay its dues. Company has to amend changes in a way that payments do not take more duration and standardly payments can be done. Investorsmay see it as a company’s way to use credit for a longer duration but it can also raise questions whether company is facing a liquidity crunch or not. A lesser current ratio will increase such doubts. A company’s tie up with its creditors has to be sound as to maintain cash needs in future. CONCLUSION It can be concluded that accounting and finance are two pillars supporting the organisation in both internal and external means. Internally they help in maintaining records and budget allocation with supporting the need of better investments among projects. Externally the reports being used by investors to put their money in safe place with returns thus boosting investment for the company. It can also be seen with the help of financial ratios companies are able to find out its own strengths and weaknesses and compare with the previous year performance of where they need to work. It will help investors also to gauge the financial strength of the company. Company’s profitability increases in an organised way with help of these functions. 11
Smith, S.J. and Urquhart, V., 2018. Accounting and finance in UK universities: Academic labour, shortages and strategies.The British Accounting Review.50(6). pp.588-601. 13