Internal and external sources of financial data

Accurate information has a significant role in the decision-making process as an organization can make a sound decision only in case accurate information is supplied to the correct people at the right time in a comprehensibleformat.As per the assertions of Mimura, et al. (2015), external as well as internal information is considered by an investor to make a decision relating to investment or to assess the efficiency of an organization. Present report emphasis on assessment of the external as well as internal sources from which appropriate financial data can be attained.

Further assessment of the various ratios of Crawford Healthcare has been done in order to evaluate its financial performance. Discussion relating to methods of evaluating investment proposals will also be provided in order to ascertain the best method for the company.

A.C. 1.1 Source of financial data that is HM revenue and customs.

A.C.1.4 include a profit and loss account or other financial data within your organization (no names need to be disclosed), then as per the Task examine this data (maybe comparing 2 or 3 previous years) and identify areas that you consider deserve further investigation/analysis explaining how and why you consider this to be necessary. Is it profitable?

You then need to refer to the task again and describe the types of data on other organisations that you may require from time to time, such as competitors, suppliers (to ensure they are financially sound in order to provide a constant supply chain).  You then need to go on to explain briefly how you would test the validity of the data.

A.C. 1.2 you need to apply these to the financial data provided in AC1.4.  Giving actual calculations of the ratios.

A.C.1.3 calculate the ratios for previous year’s data and referring to the task compare them to the current year, drawing your own conclusions on your findings, identifying strengths and weaknesses and making recommendations of ways in which any shortcomings could be addressed.

A.C. 1.1 – Determine how to obtain financial data and assess its validity

Types of data required

Internal Sources

DefensiveData: The specified relates to activities which assure compliance with regulations. It comprises the integrity of the financial report and governing data. The same is presented in financial reports.The yearly report is considered extremely significant in comparison to several companies issue to their shareholders. The reason behind the same is that the annual report provides shareholders with a holistic view related to the organisation’s performance and reputation during the preceding financial year (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).

Types of data required for analysis

Apart from this, there are other sources from which information can be assured that it is valid and they are an interim financial statement, prospectus of the securities, internal account reports, annual statement and financial reports. Furthermore, as per the study of Petty, et al. (2015), the financial report comprises financial reports and other pertinent financial information, whether or not it is in fiscal terms.

Offensive Data: Offensive activities relates to other business functions such as sales and marketing, legal compliance, IT concern, supply management etc. It also comprises information relating to competitiveness in the industry in order to assess the existing trend. Moreover, data relating to suppliers of the product is also required for assessing the effectiveness of the supply chain (West and Bogers, 2014). In order to assure the validity of data the source from which information relating to above-specified variant is assessed that whether the same can be trusted or not.

External Sources:

Revenue and Custom department are believed to be appropriate external resources as the information provided by them is valid. Thus, decision taken on the basis of same is appropriate. They are a helpful source of financial information. However, share prices are affected by other factors; theyreplicate not only information on the market’s evaluation of the growth and investment risk connected to future dividends, but also on the probability of insolvency. It order to assess same other external variants should also be assessed in detail.

A.C. 1.4 – Review and question financial data

Analysis

 The word financial reporting depends on accounting information which is utilized in a broad sense in order to provide financial information to internal as well as external users. The main accounts which are required to be assessed in the above profit and loss account are:

• Exceptional Items
• Loss of acquisition
• Finance Cost
• Other Income

A significant difference in all above specified account has been assessed in comparison to the previous year. Thus, the same required to be verified through internal as well as external evidence collected from financial institutions and related parties. It is profitable to assess the above specified accounts in detail so that the reason behind variance of same can be analyzed and reduced to possible extent.

 The data required on other organization are information relating to policies followed by competitors along with the main suppliers of rivals. It is also necessary to ascertain the rates on which products are provided by competitors in order to sustain in competiton.  The validity of data depends on the source from which data has been attained. Thus efforts should be made to attain data from valid sources such as annual reports etc.

Calculation and evaluation of accounting ratios

A.C. 1.2 – Apply different types of analytical tools and techniques to a range of financial documents, formulating conclusions about performance levels and needs of stakeholders

Assessment of financial data of Crawford Healthcare

Particulars	2017	2016
Gross profit ratio (Note 1)	0.619891875	0.650696379
Net profit Ratio (Note 2)	1.285935684	1.181582361
Gearing Ratio (Note 3)	0.432833638	0.76287813
Asset Turnover Ratio (Note 4)	1.107267045	0.915660602
Current Ratio (Note 5)	0.570818148	1.091080996
Acid Test Ratio (Note 6)	0.273532738	0.55972266
Return on Capital Employed (Note 7)	0.36188008	0.128251061

Table 1: Calculation of Ratios of Crawford Healthcare

Notes to the calculation of the above ratios:

Particulars	2017	2016
Note 1
Gross profit ratio	(25156-(9562))/25156	(21540-(7524))/21540
(Total revenue -Cost of Goods Sold/ Total Revenue)	0.619891875	0.650696379
Note 2
Net profit Ratio	(3319)/(2581)	(1822)/(1542)
Net Profit after tax/Net Profit	1.285935684	1.181582361
Note 3
Gearing Ratio	2556/(5914-22791/(2611))	7251/(9519-23524/(1656))
Long term liability / Capital employed *100)	0.432833638	0.76287813
Note 4
Asset Turnover Ratio	25156/22719	21540/23524
(Net Sales / Total Assets)	1.107267045	0.915660602
Note 5
Current Ratio	9084/15914	10386/9519
Current Assets/Current Liabilities	0.570818148	1.091080996
Note 6
Acid Test Ratio	(9084-4731)/15914	(10386-5058)/9519
(Current Assets -Inventories)/Current liabilities	0.273532738	0.55972266
Note 7
Return on Capital Employed	(2137)/(5914-22791/(2611))	(1219)/(9519-23524/(1656))
Net Operating Profit/Capital Employed	0.36188008	0.128251061

A.C. 1.3 – Conduct comparative analysis of financial data

Strength of company

Profitability

Gross profit (GP) ratio can be defined as a profitability ratio which demonstrates the connection between gross profit and net sales income(Arkan, 2016). Further, the gross profit of the company is low which indicates that an organisation is having decreasing trend of gross profit which means products are under-priced. Thus, the same can be improved through increasing the price of products. Net profit (NP) ratio refers to profitability which illustrates the correlation of net profit after tax with net sales. The net profit can be calculated by dividing the net profit after tax with net sales of the company. Further, elevated net profit indicates that a Crawford Healthcare is capableofchanging sales into real income. Thisthe same can be said to be the strength of the company

Efficiency

Gearing ratio is used to calculate the fraction of the organisation’s borrowed funds to its equity. Further, this ratio signifies the financial risk to which a company is subjected to extreme debt can result in financial complexities. The gearing ratio of the company is low, indicating that the proportion of debt is low than equity. The asset turnover ratio calculates the value of an organisation’s sales or income generated relative to the value of its assets. Further, higher asset turnover ratio of Crawford Healthcare is a strength which indicates that of the companyperforming in an efficient manner as it signifies that an organisation is producing more income. Moreover the equity position also represents the efficiency of company in managing required through its own resources (capital and retained earnings)

Return on capital employed (ROCE) refers to the financial ratio which estimates the profitability of an organisation as well as the efficiency with which its capital is utilized. Moreover, it is necessary that the company’s ROE is higher than the cost or else it implies that the organisation is not employing its capital efficiently as well as it is not producing shareholder value.  Further, ROCE of Crawford Healthcare is higher, andit is signifying that capital is utilised in an effective manner.

Weakness

Liquidity

Strengths and weaknesses of the organization

The current ratio can be defined as a liquidity and efficiency ratio which calculates the capability of the company to recompense its short-term liabilities with its current assets. Further, the current ratio of the company is low which implies that it is not efficiently capable of paying off its debt and it represents the weakness of the company. However even the ratio has decreased to a significant extent in comparison to the previous year, butstill, it has not been lower in comparison to idol ratio, i.e. 0.5:1. Acid test ratio can be defined as the strong indicator of whether the company has adequate short-term assets or not. The same implies that whether the company is capable of meeting its immediate liabilities. Further, the companyhas an acid test ratio of less than 1, indicating that the company does not have sufficient liquid assets to meet their current liabilities…

Conclusion

Ratio analysis are applied to assess the actual position of an organization on all financial as well as non-financial metrics i.e. profitability, liquidity and efficiency. Thus, in case of above company it can be assessed that it is not able to manage its cash in appropriate manner as due to same reason it is weak at liquidity parameters.The same can be improved through managing liquid funds and making them available all the time. Further, it is recommended to develop appropriate budget in structured manner so that regular monitoring against organisational or departmental targets could be done. The required quantum of liquid assets can be known from same and attempt could be made for their availability.

A.C. 2.1 – Identify how a budget can be produced taking into account financial constraints and achievement of targets, legal requirements and accounting conventions

Possible approaches to budget production

In accordance with the viewpoint of Epstein (2018), budgeting can be placed at the heart of the method according to which company evaluate the main objectives. It plays a very important role in planning, incorporation of activities, managing expenses, assigning funds, representing the performance against objectives as well as attaining the strategic goals. It is anticipated that the executives who are modern must have financial knowledge and to take some accountability regarding financial issues.

Further, in actual terms, decisions are taken by executives rather than an accountant. At the same time, preparation of budget requires the support of experts. The two approaches to budgeting are top-down approach and bottom-up approach. The bottom-up approach provides each department equal chance to make a decision relating to their department. The top-down approach will be applied by Crawford Healthcare in which decision is taken by upper management.

Recommendations for addressing shortcomings

The main steps evolved in preparation of effective budget are as follows:

Ascertainment of Goals: It is essential to identify the significant objectives so that the company can have the clear image about the priorities which will be taken into consideration while making preparing budget (Miller, 2018). Moreover, budgeting is to some extent a secondary procedure that is secondary to the business plans of the company. Since the accurate budget can be prepared only when the objectives are cleared to the management. The main objective of Crawford Healthcare is to become a leading global business, expanding and trading advanced wound care as well as dermatology with direct sales existence in key major markets, specifically the United Kingdom, United States of America and Germany.

Defining constraints in order to review procedure to resolve them: Constraints which are usually faced by an organization while developing budgets area competitive environment, the number of sales, number of consumers and producing plant accessible. Further, the specified elements will have a significant impact on planning as well as on budgeting. There is no point in preparing a budget based on increasing volume of sales, in case it will be either unrealistic or unfeasible. As per study Corrigan (2018)

, in order to prepare a budget the best factor to consider is to predict general economic situations as well as trends which will influence the company. At the same time, it is to be kept in mind that it is hard to plan long-term in detail since the more the company get from the present conditions, the more possibility there is of external as well as internal modifications. Hence, the yearly budget is more effective and practical in comparison to the five-year budget.

Accomplishing legal requirement: The main aspects which are to be considered in this phase are that the comprehensive legal framework should be followed while developing long-term orientation in the budget process. Further, regulatory and legal requirements relating to forecasting should be considered that they do not provide vague information to the user of the budget.

Developing budget: In order to prepare budget firstly, the company should reconsider its objectives and targets to see that what are the requirements and how the budget is required to be adjusted or reformed accordingly. Since the budget has the key role in evaluating the performance of the company.Further, the assessment should be done regarding external and internal aspects which can influence the performance of the company. The same might comprises the rate of inflation, bank lending charges, trade forecasts for the current year and whether the company needs to arouse the market. The budgeting for growth also implies that having resources accessible in order to manage the hoped-for-increase in levels of business, so it is essential that company should not to stimulate a demand which organisation could not fulfil (Hammer and Loft house, 2018).

Limitations of using ratios to measure financial performance

It is significant for business entities to ensure detailed information regarding financial forecasting for the preparation of viable budgets. Considered information for preparation of budget must have present as well as future relevance. Documentation of considered information is also important for future reference for just in case if anything went wrong,the person or process responsible for mishappening can be identified. Further, contingency allowance is to be formed for unknown threats or unexpected situations. Therefore, forecasting must be supported by high low range to have a clearer picture for the execution of budgets on real operations of the business.

A.C. 2.2 – Analyse the budget outcomes against organisational objectives identifying alternatives

Assessment of budget

Issue identified

The issues which are present in the cash flow are first despite taking overdraft of £750000 from the bank the cash flow is showing negative balances. Further, the net cash flow of the company is negative which represents that they need more funds.The same implies that a company is not using the funds accurately as despite bank overdraft the company’s cash flow is not accurate. Moreover, it can also be assessed that capital expenditure has not been pre-planned because after spending on capital expenditure only the scheduled cash flow has been disturbed and negative closing bank balance have been assessed at the end of the month.

In order to resolve the issues, three alternatives have been discussed here. The further company has been spending on promotion and advertisement activities in a significant manner;however,the same result has not been reflected in sales. It is a fact that it is not appropriate to judge the result of advertisement at such short notice. Thus, either company can wait to assess the results or can limit the amount of advertisement expenditure. Alternatives to overcome the issue are increasing the amount of overdraft, issuing more equity, establishing favourable credit terms with trade partners and suppliers and reducing the expenses.

Alternatives to resolve the issues

• The company can overcome the issues which are identified above by increasing the overdraft limit of the bank. Further, the same will require the company to operate efficiently and to meet the legal as well as cash flow requirements.
• In addition to this, the company can also adoptnew or enhanced payment terms with its associates. By extending the time period of payment to partners for an outstanding receipt to due in 30-90 days, the company could hold more cash for a long period of time. The company could also look at getting new, extending, payment terms (Maskell, Baggaley and Grasso2016). Further, the suppliers with which company has healthy relations and payment history might be open to offering company payment terms.  In addition to this, the company can negotiate the 30-day payment schedule to 60-90 days with trade associates since through this the company will hold cash for a longer time.
• Another alternative is lowering expenditures in order to overcome the issues of cash flow. Though, it is simple to go about this the wrong way by reducing big expenses since it decreases the capability of the company to generate profit. Moreover, it is necessary that the company should cut down on the expenses which are not important. According to Lewellen and Lewellen (2016), anything that is not important in the functioningof the company must cut before requirements such as inventory, marketing or labour. Often times the seller’s company cut will provide rebates to earn back business later when a company can have the funds for attaining them back.

A.C. 3.1 – Identify criteria by which proposals are judged

Criteria for judging a proposal

• The attractiveness of market opportunity is to be evaluated on the prior basis in order to ascertain the actual place of service in comparison to the service provided by the competitor. It is to be assured that the company is capable of being a significant player inthe market.
• The value created by the proposal is to be measured. Further, it is required to be assessed that whether it is able to accomplish need of a customer. Research analysis of the market is to be done on the necessary basis to ascertain the receptiveness of potential customers.
• The competitive advantage of the proposal is required to be evaluated in order to ascertain the position of the company in the market. Further, it is necessaryto be analyzed that the new proposal favourable positions in the distribution channel.
• Operational and technological viability: The technology required in the proposal is required to be assessed along with its operational factors. Moreover, the manner in which operational obstacles relating to the proposal will be overcome is also to be assessed.
• Capital requirement: It is believed to be one of the significant variants as if the company does not have sufficient funds then it will not be able to move on, or it will have to look for available finance alternatives.

A.C. 3.2 – Analysing the viability of the proposal for expenditure

The viability of the proposal can be accessed by evaluating the capital investment proposal. The two methods of evaluating a project are:

Net Present Value (NPV)

With accordance to Gotze, Northcott and Schuster (2016), the net present value decision method is a very common and effectual procedure for estimating the project. Executing a net present value evaluation basically necessitates evaluating the difference between project cost that is cash outflows and cash produced by that project that is cash inflows. The reason behind the effectiveness of this method is that it utilizes discounted cash flow scrutiny, where future cash flows are discounted at a discount rate in order to reimburse for the ambiguity of those future cash flows. In net present value method, the word “present value”  refers to the fact that cash flows produced in the future are not worth as much as cash flow at present(Abor, 2017).

Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

According to Santandrea (2017), the internal rate of return (IRR) is a discount rate which is generally utilized to calculate how much of a return a shareholder can anticipate apprehending from a specific project. In other words, the internal rate of the method is the discount rate which takes places when a project is at its break-even point which shows NPV is equal to zero. In this method the decision rule is simple that is the company must select the proposal which has elevated IRR than the cost of financing. Furthermore, as per assertions of Shvetsova,Rodionova, and Epstein, (2018), if the cost of capital is 7%, then they should not acknowledge the proposal till the IRR is not bigger than 7%. It is considered that, greater the difference between the financing and the IRR, the more striking the project becomes.

A.C. 3.3 – Identify the strengths and weaknesses and give feedback on the financial proposal 

Strength and weakness of the financial proposal

It is stated by O’Neill, Sohal and Teng(2016) that, in the case of mutually exclusive proposals, the project which has the highest NPV among all the projects will be accepted. Moreover, it considers all the cash flows linked to the proposal and discounts them to factor continually. As per the study of El-Daour, and Abu Shaaban(2014), the advantage of the net present value method is that it is constantly steady with the goal of wealth maximization of the shareholder. Along with the advantage, it also has a disadvantage that it is difficult to conclude the discount rate and the opportunity cost of spending on proposals than capital markets and to evaluate the cash flows.

Internal Rate of Return is untrustworthy when there is non-normal cash because these consequences in multiple rates or in estimating mutually exclusive projects particularly those differ in scale(Mellichamp, 2017). This method is monotonous and also time- consuming to estimate for proposals with a long-life. It also demonstrates the break-even point, making it simple to conclude whether there is a surplus return to shareholders.

IRR decision method is uncomplicated when it comes to sovereign proposals, though the rule of IRR in mutually-exclusive projects can be typical. It is feasible that two mutually exclusive proposals could have contradictory IRRs and NPVs, it means that one project had lower IRR but elevated NPV than another proposal. These issues can occurwhen initial investments between the two projects are not the same.

Further, after having a discussion on both the methods of evaluation of capital investment proposal, it can be assessed that Net Present Value method is effective than Internal Rate of Return method. The reason behind the same is that the IRR method considers the single discount rate which will not be accurate in reality. On the other hand, the problem of IRR is resolved by the NPV method as it discounts back the future cash flows at various discount rates with ease. Further, IRR could be more than one which creates confusion as well as makes analysis complex. IRR could also be negative which is hard to understand, while in case NPV is negative it only means that Deficit and positive implies productivity in the proposal.

A.C. 3.4 – Evaluate the impact of the proposal on the strategic objectives of the organisation

The strategic objective of Crawford Healthcare to transform itself intoaleading global organization. The same can be attained only through extending sales in key markets which comprise specifically the United Kingdom, United States of America and Germany. Thus, in case the NPV of the proposal is positive then it will assist the company in attaining its strategic objective.

References

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