One example would be to decrease the amount of inventory your company holds. This means that companies can reduce or eliminate slow-moving or obsolete inventory, which in turn reduces the cost and time needed to dispose of these items. The higher the operating cycle, the lower the liquidity will be because more time elapses before cash is obtained. Capitalizing on your operational efficiency can have positive effects that are felt throughout the rest of your business. For example, businesses like airlines operate on longer cycles due to their reliance on expensive aircraft and employees who often work around the clock. Similarly, an efficient production process can help improve product quality and turnover speed while reducing manufacturing errors.

Additionally, a shorter operating cycle can enhance a company’s competitiveness by enabling it to respond more quickly to changes in customer demand or market conditions. Once you have calculated both the Inventory Turnover Period and the Accounts Receivable Collection Period, simply add them together to obtain the Operating Cycle. This metric provides valuable insights into how efficiently a company manages its working capital and cash flow by measuring the time it takes to convert investments into cash. Divide the price of products sold by the average inventory ratio to find a firm’s turnover ratio.

Operating Cycle

To explain it briefly, the operating cycle is essentially the average amount of time a business needs to generate cash inflow from its initial investment in inventory. You should come up with strategies to collect payments from your customers as soon as you can. Consider offering discounts or attractive benefits to customers who pay early. Early payments go a long way in shortening the operating cycle of your business. The operating cycle of working capital can greatly impact a company’s profitability.

• In simpler words, it’s how fast the business makes money from the money it spends on purchasing inventory.
• If the operating cycle is long, capital remains tied up and you will not be able to use them.
• Operating cycle of working capital refers to the total number of working days that a business takes to buy inventory, sell it off, and then collect the proceedings from the sale.
• In this case, the operating cycle of the business would not end until all the items have been sold and Joseph receives cash for all of them.
• This means that companies can reduce or eliminate slow-moving or obsolete inventory, which in turn reduces the cost and time needed to dispose of these items.

To be more exact, payable turnover days measure how quickly a corporation can pay off its financial commitments to suppliers. The operating cycle (OC) specifies how long it takes for a corporation to convert inventory purchases into cash revenues from a sale. The cash OC, cash conversion cycle, or asset conversion cycle are other common names. Then the product is sold via distributors on credit, and after a specific number of days, the amount is collected from the debtors.

Shorten operating cycle

The operating cycle typically begins with the acquisition of raw materials or inventory, followed by the manufacturing or production process. Once the products are ready, they are sold to customers on credit terms, which initiates the accounts receivable phase. A smart technique to assess a company’s financial health is to follow an operational cycle over time.

Considered from a larger perspective, the operating cycle affects the financial health of a company by giving them an idea of how much its operations will cost, as well as how quickly it can pay its debts. The longer the operating cycle, the more operating cycle formula cash is tied up in operations (i.e. working capital needs), which directly lowers a company’s free cash flow (FCF). The formula for calculating the operating cycle is the sum of days inventory outstanding (DIO) and days sales outstanding (DSO).