Revenue Outstanding Measured as the Weeks Billing Outstanding
MEASURING OUTSTANDING REVENUE AS WEEKS BILLING OUTSTANDING
By SACHIN GHOGLE
Introduction Financial management focuses in finding the value in accounts receivable by emphasizing on improving the collections process and hence accelerating the cash flow. ‘Revenue Outstanding’ is the amount due from the customer as a result of an organisation’s normal business operation, that is, it is the amount that has been billed by organisations and is due, but which has not been collected. The management of ‘Revenue Outstanding’ is an important source of cash and hence an important parameter that the management should measure. The estimation of time to recoup the revenue outstanding is important to determine the profit of any organisation. Most prefer to receive payment immediately rather than to wait for it, especially because sometimes payment is never made in the latter scenario. There is no one general technique to estimate the time to recoup the revenue that can be adopted by all the organisations. It varies from organisation to organisation depending on the nature of business and the needs and strategies of the management. Although there is no certainty of receiving payments from all the customers, organisations use various methods to calculate the revenue outstanding or the payment that will be recovered later at a any particular point of time. The Weeks Billing Outstanding (WBO) measure calculates the revenue outstanding based on the total number of week’s billings required to recoup current Revenue Outstanding. The WBO is an important financial parameter, which shows the age in weeks, in an organization's accounts receivable and is defined in terms of the average time taken to convert the outstanding revenue into cash. The WBO measure helps the management to measure the effectiveness of collection activities and alert the management with problem accounts. If the WBO is low, then less time is spent to collect outstanding revenue. By quickly converting the billings
By SACHIN GHOGLE
Introduction Financial management focuses in finding the value in accounts receivable by emphasizing on improving the collections process and hence accelerating the cash flow. ‘Revenue Outstanding’ is the amount due from the customer as a result of an organisation’s normal business operation, that is, it is the amount that has been billed by organisations and is due, but which has not been collected. The management of ‘Revenue Outstanding’ is an important source of cash and hence an important parameter that the management should measure. The estimation of time to recoup the revenue outstanding is important to determine the profit of any organisation. Most prefer to receive payment immediately rather than to wait for it, especially because sometimes payment is never made in the latter scenario. There is no one general technique to estimate the time to recoup the revenue that can be adopted by all the organisations. It varies from organisation to organisation depending on the nature of business and the needs and strategies of the management. Although there is no certainty of receiving payments from all the customers, organisations use various methods to calculate the revenue outstanding or the payment that will be recovered later at a any particular point of time. The Weeks Billing Outstanding (WBO) measure calculates the revenue outstanding based on the total number of week’s billings required to recoup current Revenue Outstanding. The WBO is an important financial parameter, which shows the age in weeks, in an organization's accounts receivable and is defined in terms of the average time taken to convert the outstanding revenue into cash. The WBO measure helps the management to measure the effectiveness of collection activities and alert the management with problem accounts. If the WBO is low, then less time is spent to collect outstanding revenue. By quickly converting the billings