What Is a Good Liquidity Ratio?

Calculating the current ratio at just one point in time could indicate that the company can’t cover all of its current debts, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t be able to when the payments are due. A ratio under 1.00 indicates that the company’s debts due in a year or less are greater than its assets—cash or other short-term assets expected to be converted to cash within a year or less. A current ratio of less than 1.00 may seem alarming, although different situations can negatively affect the current ratio in a solid company.

The current ratio is one of three commonly used liquidity ratios that company stakeholders, creditors, and investors use to measure short-term financial health. A current ratio below 1.0 indicates a business may be unable to cover its current liabilities with current assets. The current ratio calculator allows you to calculate your current ratio, which is a sign of the short-term financial health of your company.

• Meanwhile, an improving current ratio could indicate an opportunity to invest in an undervalued stock amid a turnaround.
• Suppliers may want to know whether they’re going to get their bills paid and customers may want to know how long they’re going to be able to do business with you if they rely on your product or service.
• The Current Ratio is a measure of a company’s near-term liquidity position, or more specifically, the short-term obligations coming due within one year.
• Therefore, applicable to all measures of liquidity, solvency, and default risk, further diligence is necessary to understand the actual financial health of a company.
• Include your cash, accounts receivable, the value of your inventory, and other items that could be turned into cash in the coming year.

The liquidity ratio is commonly used by creditors and lenders when deciding whether to extend credit to a business. If your current ratio drops below one, it means your company has insufficient current assets to meet short-term obligations. You will need to increase your current assets or reduce current liabilities to raise your current ratio above 1.0. The current ratio also only expresses the financial position of a company at the current time, and won’t give a complete picture of the company’s liquidity and solvency. It’s also important to compare the business in question to other businesses in their industry. If the current ratio for the business in question is lower than the industry average, that may indicate some serious cash flow problems.

Acid Test Ratio

Businesses with an acid test ratio less than one do not have enough liquid assets to pay off their debts. If the difference between the acid test ratio and the current ratio is large, it means the business is currently relying too much on inventory. Liquidity ratio for a business is its ability to pay off its debt obligations.

Perhaps it is taking on too much debt or its cash balance is being depleted—either of which could be a solvency issue if it worsens. The trend for Horn & Co. is positive, which could indicate better collections, faster inventory turnover, or that the company has been able to pay down debt. Public companies don’t report their current ratio, though all the information needed to calculate the ratio is contained in the company’s financial statements. There are several ratios available for analysis, all of which compare the liquid assets to the short-term liabilities. While a ratio of 1.0 suggests that a business can hold its own and pay the bills, it may not be indicative of business health.

Company B has more cash, which is the most liquid asset, and more accounts receivable, which could be collected more quickly than liquidating inventory. Although the total value of current assets matches, Company B is in a more liquid, solvent position. The current ratio, also known as the working capital ratio, measures the business’ ability to pay off its short-term debt obligations with its current assets. The cash ratio is a more conservative liquidity ratio and is calculated in the same way as the current ratio and the quick ratio while excluding both inventory and A/R from current assets. The quick ratio is commonly used to measure the financial health of companies that count inventory as a large percentage of current assets, such as retail and manufacturing businesses.

A Refresher on Current Ratio

In order to calculate your current ratio, you need to compare your company’s assets and liabilities. In general, a current ratio of 1 or higher is considered good, and anything lower than 1 is a cause for concern. Therefore, applicable to all measures of liquidity, solvency, and default risk, further diligence is necessary to understand the actual financial health of a company. In this case, current liabilities are expressed as 1 and current assets are expressed as whatever proportionate figure they come to. Even from the point of view of creditors, a high current ratio is not necessarily a safeguard against non-payment of debts.

This means that the value of a company’s assets is 1.5 to 3 times the amount of its current liabilities. Things that wouldn’t be considered current liabilities are any long-term financial obligations that are not payable within one calendar year. This is because it is generally assumed that you can convert these assets to cash within a year. For example, in one industry, it may be more typical to extend credit to clients for 90 days or longer, while in another industry, short-term collections are more critical.

The current ratio or working capital ratio is a ratio of current assets to current liabilities within a business. However, when evaluating a company’s liquidity, the current ratio alone doesn’t determine whether it’s a good investment or not. It’s therefore important to consider other financial ratios in your analysis. Assets that would not be considered current assets are anything that cannot be converted to cash within one year.

What counts as a good current ratio will depend on the company’s industry and historical performance. The quick assets refer to the current assets of a business that can be converted into cash within ninety days. Of course, private companies don’t advertise their current or quick ratios so this information isn’t immediately available to everyone.

“So this ratio will tell you how easy it would be for a company to pay off its short-term debt without waiting to sell off inventory,” explains Knight. “For businesses that have a lot of cash tied up in inventory, lenders and vendors will be looking at their quick ratio.” However, most people will look at both together, says Knight, often comparing the two. The current ratio alone will not likely be sufficient to assess a company’s short-term liquidity, for example. The current ratio accounts for all the current assets of a company without considering that some assets may be harder to convert to cash than others. Inventory can be very difficult to convert to cash than accounts receivable. Therefore, the liquidity of the company may be better than the current ratio suggests.

The Quick Ratio

For the last step, we’ll divide the current assets by the current liabilities. The Current Ratio is a measure of a company’s near-term liquidity position, or more specifically, the short-term obligations coming due within one year. The prevailing view of what constitutes a “good” ratio has been changing in recent years, as more companies have looked to the future rather than just the current moment. Some lenders and investors have been looking for a 2-3 ratio, while others have said 1 to 1 is good enough. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve as a business owner or investor. The current ratio is something that business owners should consider when they are analyzing their financial performance.

A primary criticism of the quick ratio is it may overestimate the difficulty of quickly selling inventory at market price. A current ratio greater than 2.0 may indicate that a company isn’t investing its short-term assets efficiently. On the other hand, a company with a current ratio greater than 1 will likely pay off its current liabilities since it has no short-term liquidity concerns.

Why You Can Trust Finance Strategists

This is because it could mean that the company maintains an excessive cash balance or has over-invested in receivables and inventories. One limitation of the current ratio emerges when using it to compare different companies with one another. Businesses differ substantially among industries; comparing the current ratios of companies across different industries may not lead to productive insight. The current ratio can be a useful measure of a company’s short-term solvency when it is placed in the context of what has been historically normal for the company and its peer group. It also offers more insight when calculated repeatedly over several periods. The liquidity ratio has an impact on the credit rating as well as the credibility of the business.

The range used to gauge the financial health of a company using the current ratio metric varies on the specific industry. The first way to express the current ratio is to express it as a proportion (i.e., current liabilities to current assets). Generally, the assumption is made that the higher the current ratio, the better the creditors’ position due to the higher probability that debts will be paid when due. The resulting figure represents the number of times a company can pay its current short-term obligations with its current assets. They would also include short-term bank loans and any maturities of long-term debt. Current assets are any balance sheet items, including liquid assets, that can be converted into cash within one calendar year.

• The current ratio expressed as a percentage is arrived at by showing the current assets of a company as a percentage of its current liabilities.
• Perhaps it is taking on too much debt or its cash balance is being depleted—either of which could be a solvency issue if it worsens.
• One of the worst things that can happen to a small business owner is to run out of cash.
• Ironically, the industry that extends more credit actually may have a superficially stronger current ratio because its current assets would be higher.

Another practical measure of a company’s liquidity is the quick ratio, otherwise known as the “acid-test” ratio. Here, the company could withstand a liquidity shortfall if providers of debt financing see the core operations are intact and still capable of generating consistent cash flows at high margins. The current ratio reflects a company’s capacity to pay off all its short-term obligations, under the hypothetical scenario that short-term obligations are due right now. If a business has a ratio that is higher than 2-to-1 then it may suggest that they are not investing short-term assets efficiently.

Company

That being said, how good a current ratio is depends on the type of company you’re talking about. It might be very common in certain industries to have current ratios lower than 1. Supermarkets, for instance, tend to operate at current ratios below 1 because they have few trade receivables, have a high level of trade payables, and have tight cash control. In simplest terms, it measures the amount of cash available relative to its liabilities. For example, if a company’s current assets are $80,000 and its current liabilities are $64,000, its current ratio is 125%.

What is a Good Current Ratio?

On the other hand, the current liabilities are those that must be paid within the current year. For this reason, instead of picking a finite number, companies tend to pick a range of what they would consider to be a good current ratio. The second factor is that Claws’ current ratio has been more volatile, jumping from 1.35 to 1.05 in a single year, which could indicate increased operational risk and a likely drag on the company’s value. One shortcoming of the metric is that the cash balance includes the minimum cash amount required for working capital needs.

Our guide on assets in accounting provides more examples and information on how assets are classified. If you are looking to take out a loan to improve short-term cash flow, Lendio can help. Matt has more than 10 years of financial experience and more than 20 years of journalism experience.

The current ratio is a number, usually expressed between 0 and up, that lets a business know whether they have enough cash to service their immediate debts and liabilities. The company has just enough current assets to pay off its liabilities on its balance sheet. The last drawback to the current ratio that we’ll discuss is the accounts receivable amount can include “Bad A/R”, which is uncollectable customer payments, but management refuses to recognize it as such.