Negative working capital means the excess of current liabilities over current assets in an enterprise. Let’s understand what working capital is to get more clarity about negative working capital. Meaning of Working Capital Working Capital refers to the difference between current assets and current lRead more
Negative working capital means the excess of current liabilities over current assets in an enterprise.
Let’s understand what working capital is to get more clarity about negative working capital.
Meaning of Working Capital
Working Capital refers to the difference between current assets and current liabilities of a business.
Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities
It is the capital that an enterprise employs to run its daily operations. It indicates the short term liquidity or the capacity to pay off the current liabilities and pay for the daily operations.
Items under Current Assets and Current Liabilities
It is important to know about the items under current assets and current liabilities to understand the significance of working capital.
Current assets include cash and bank balance, accounts receivables, inventories, short term investments, prepaid expenses etc.
Current liabilities include accounts payable, short term loans, bank overdraft, interest on short term investment, outstanding salaries and wages etc.
Types of working capital
Since the working capital is just the difference between current assets and liabilities, the working capital can be one of the following:
- Positive (Current assets > Current liabilities)
- Zero (Current assets = Current liabilities)
- Negative (Current assets < Current liabilities)
Hence, negative working capital exists when current liabilities are more than current assets.
Implications of having negative working capital
Having negative working capital is not an ideal situation for an enterprise. Having negative working capital indicates that the enterprise is not in a position to pay off its current liabilities and there may be a cash crunch in the business.
An enterprise may have to finance its working capital requirements through long term finance sources if its working capital remains negative for quite a long time.
The ideal situation is to have current assets two times the current liabilities to maintain a good short term liquidity of the business i.e.
Current Assets = 2(Current Liabilities)
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When a business deposits its money into a bank account, it receives a percentage of the amount deposited as bank interest. The journal entry for interest received from a bank is as follows: Since the Bank account is a current asset, it gets debited. This is in accordance with the modern rules of accRead more
When a business deposits its money into a bank account, it receives a percentage of the amount deposited as bank interest. The journal entry for interest received from a bank is as follows:
Since the Bank account is a current asset, it gets debited. This is in accordance with the modern rules of accounting where an increase in assets is debited while a decrease in assets is credited. According to the traditional rules (golden rules) of accounting, a bank account is classified under Personal account with the rule of “debit the receiver” and “credit the giver”. In the given journal entry bank account is receiving money and is hence debited.
Meanwhile, Bank interest is the income received by the business and according to the modern rule of accounting, an increase in incomes is credited and a decrease in incomes is debited. Whereas, considering the traditional rules (golden rules), bank interest comes under Nominal account where “all incomes are credited” and “all expenses are debited”. Therefore, considering these rules, bank interest is credited.
EXAMPLE
If Gregor Ltd has a bank account with HSBC, having an opening balance of Rs 10,000 earning an interest of 5% per annum, then the journal entry for interest received from the bank is recorded as
The interest amount is taken on the amount deposited in the bank (10,000 * 5%).
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