One of the most important long-term decisions for any business is investment with the aim of making gains in the future. Investment decisions are concerned with the use of funds including buying, holding or selling and each decision could be vital to a firm. A careless decision may result in a long-term loss or even worse, bankruptcy. Therefore, an in-depth understanding and analysis is necessary for a high quality investment decision process. This is also even more critical to investors who invest in stock of company or shareholders. Financial statement analysis is critical in making effective stock investment decisions. By study the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and statement of owners’ equity separately and combined, an analyst might have a good sense of a company’s overall financial picture; therefore, the investment decisions are likely to be reasonable and profitable. Financial Statements Analysis In order to understand the analysis Continue reading
Financial Management
Financial management entails planning for the future of a person or a business enterprise to ensure a positive cash flow, including the administration and maintenance of financial assets. The primary concern of financial management is the assessment rather than the techniques of financial quantification. Some experts refer to financial management as the science of money management. The five basic components of the Financial Management Framework are: Planning and Analysis, Asset and Liability Management, Reporting, Transaction Processing and Control.
Characteristics of Good Management Accounting Information
Management accounting information should comply with a various number of characteristics including verifiability, objectivity, timeliness, comparability, reliability, understandability and relevance if it is to be useful in planning, control and decision-making. The first characteristic of management accounting information are verifiability .Verifiability means observable to outsiders, in the context of a model of information. It refers to the ability of accountants to ensure that accounting information is what it purports to be. It also means that the selected method of measurement has been used without error or bias. The outsiders cannot see them and so references to those variables in a contract between the two parties cannot be enforced by outside authorities. An example of verifiability is that of two accountants looking at the same information like inventory valuation and coming to similar conclusions. Objectivity is also one of the characteristics that useful in planning and making decision. Accountant reliance on Continue reading
Financial Management Decisions
Financial Management is concerned with the acquisition and utilization of capital funds in meeting the financial needs and overall objectives of a business enterprise. Thus the primary function of finance is to acquire capital funds and put them for proper utilization, with which the firm’s objectives are fulfilled. The firm should be able to procure sufficient funds on reasonable terms and conditions and should exercise proper control in applying them in order to earn a good rate of return, which in turn allows the firm to reward the sources of funds reasonably, and leaves the firm with good surplus to grow further. These activities viz. financing, investing and dividend payment are not sequential they are performed simultaneously and continuously. Financial Management Decisions – Three Major Decisions in Financial Management The Financial Management can be broken down in to three major decisions or functions of finance. They are: (i) the investment Continue reading
Areas and Scope of Financial Management
Financial management, at present is not confined to raising and allocating funds. The study of financial institutions like stock exchange, capital, market, etc. is also emphasized because they influenced under writing of securities & corporate promotion. Company finance was considered to be the major domain of financial management. The scope of this subject has widened to cover capital structure, dividend policies, profit planning and control, depreciation policies. Some of the functional areas covered in financial management are discussed as such- Determining financial needs:- A finance manager is supposed to meet financial needs of the enterprise. For this purpose, he should determine financial needs of the concern. Funds are needed to meet promotional expenses, fixed and working capital needs. The requirement of fixed assets is related to types of industry. A manufacturing concern will require more investments in fixed assets than a trading concern. The working capital needs depend upon scale Continue reading
Qualitative Characteristics of Financial Information
Qualitative characteristics are the attributes that make financial information useful to users. The qualitative characteristics of financial information can be categorized as fundamental (relevance and faithful representation) or enhancing (comparability, verifiability, timeliness and understandability) based on how they influence the usefulness of financial information. Fundamental Qualitative Characteristics of Financial Information 1. Relevance Relevant financial reporting information means the ability of users (shareholder) to make a difference in their decision. Information regarding to economic phenomenon will help the users make a difference decision if it included predictive value and confirmatory value. Predictive Value: Information has predictive value if the value can be useful to the shareholder in predicting certain things that is related to future. Information which is highly predictable does not necessary has predictive value. For instance, depreciation of plant and equipment by using straight line method can be highly predictable every year, but it cannot assist in evaluating the Continue reading
Dynamic Provisioning in Indian Banking
Dynamic Provisioning: The Basel II Framework is approaching dynamic provisioning by clearly requiring banks to separately measure EL(Expected Loss) and UL(Unexpected Loss). EL-based provisioning has forward-looking element as it is capable of incorporating through the cycle view of probability of default. The recent financial crisis has provided a still further fillip to the search for a forward-looking provisioning approach due to pro-cyclical considerations. Inadequacy of the Current Provisioning Policy in India: In normal provisioning policies, specific provisions are made ex-post based on some estimation of the level of impairment. The general provisions are normally made ex-ante as determined by regulatory authorities or bank management based on their subjective judgment. While such a policy for making specific provisions is pro-cyclical, that for general provisions does not lay down objective rules for utilization thereof. Indian banks make the following types of loan loss provisions at present: General provisions for standard assets, Specific Continue reading