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Cashflow tip – Is Profit same as Cash? - Managing cashflow small business
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Published on Friday, 31 March 2017 16:11
Many clients wonder – is profit the same as cash? They tell me they have profit in their business, but wonder why they don’t have cash in the bank.
If you have cash sales, profit will usually correlate closely. That is you get paid immediately and bank it, and do not invoice waiting to be paid in 7,14, 30 days etc. And you pay your expenses with cash direct from the bank, the balance should be the Cash Profit (ignoring asset expenses).
But if you invoice clients for goods and services, that is accrual accounting - the timing of when customers pay has an effect on the cash the business actually has. For example not everyone pays on time, but if they did you would have regular cash flow, and at the beginning, the first money coming in would only be delayed by the terms at the beginning eg 7 days, 30 days. Once those days of waiting have passed, the regular payments will mean regular flow of money to cover your expenses as long as they keep to the time periods to pay!
What happens if clients are late paying? Then the debtors asset account on your balance sheet will grow (that is where the invoice “waits” for payment) until the client pays.
As an example, in our previous post explaining Profit and Loss, see HERE we gave an example of Profit and Loss resulting in $15,000 profit.
Consider now, that you were only paid half of the sales at the end of the period (which is more close to reality – eg most pay the next month or two…in 60 days)
Sales (invoices) $100,000
But only paid (actual cash) $50,000
Which goes to bank (in assets)
Net Left $50,000
Which sits in debtors/receivables (in assets)
Note - PROFIT would be same in accounting terms,
but CASH Profit would be -$35,000 – see below
That is - if you still had paid all your bills, you would have to find $35,000 to pay them!
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