What is Turnover in Business? Importance & Calculation

Turnover in business can refer to a variety of different measurements. In its broadest sense, a company’s annual turnover equates to its total sales figure. Common forms of turnover include accounts receivable turnover, inventory turnover, portfolio turnover, and working capital turnover. Companies can better assess the efficiency of their operations through looking at a range of these ratios, often with the goal of maximizing turnover.

Turnover ratios calculate how quickly a business collects cash from its accounts receivable and inventory investments. These ratios are used by fundamental analysts and investors to determine if a company is deemed a good investment. Turnover is a measurement used in business that gives an indication of a company’s performance in a specific area.

What’s the difference between turnover and profit?

All businesses need to keep accurate records for tax purposes. Doing so will make adding up your total sales a relatively fast process. Turnover is calculated over a specific period of time, usually a quarter or financial year. The reciprocal of the inventory turnover ratio (1/inventory turnover) is the days sales of inventory (DSI). This tells you how many days it takes, on average, to completely sell and replace a company’s inventory. There are several other possible definitions of turnover too.

The accounts receivable turnover formula tells you how quickly you are collecting payments, compared with your credit sales. For example, if credit sales for the month total $300,000 and the account receivable balance is $50,000, then the turnover rate is six. The goal is to maximize sales, minimize the receivable balance, and generate a large turnover rate. Accounts receivable represents the total dollar amount of unpaid customer invoices at any point in time.

Understanding turnover is important no matter the industry you’re in. The concept will allow you to understand how your business does when it comes to conducting operations and selling services. One of the most common alternative uses is employee turnover, which is also known as staff turnover or labour turnover. Employee turnover refers to the number of employees that leave the company over a given time period.

Working Capital Turnover

This is the most common use of the term “turnover” in business. The term also refers to a measure for portfolios, inventories, and accounts receivable. Profit refers to a company’s total revenues minus its expenses. By contrast, turnover can refer to how quickly a company either has sold its inventory or is collecting payments compared with sales over a specific time period. Generally speaking, turnover looks at the speed and efficiency of a company’s operations. Assume that a mutual fund has $100 million in assets under management, and the portfolio manager sells $20 million in securities during the year.

If you sell products, your turnover will be the total sales value of the products you’ve sold. If you provide services, such as consulting or labour, your turnover will be the total that you charged for these services. Portfolios that are actively managed should have a higher rate of turnover, while a passively managed portfolio may have fewer trades during the year. The actively managed portfolio should generate more trading costs, which reduces the rate of return on the portfolio.

So, if a company’s annual sales or services charged came to 100,000 ZAR, that would be its turnover. It is therefore essential that all businesses keep detailed and accurate records. This way, a business will know how much it is selling at any given moment. “Turnover” is an accounting term that refers specifically to the total sales made by a business over a particular period.

However, turnover in itself is not a measure of success, as it doesn’t provide any information about profitability. Calculating your turnover should be super easy as long as you’ve kept an accurate record of your sales. Put simply, turnover is the total amount of money your business receives from the sale of goods and services – minus discounts and VAT. Whether you’re a business owner, a freelancer or self-employed, turnover is one of the most important financial figures to get to grips with. Keep in mind that there are 2 separate ways you can measure profit. Pretty much every business – large and small – will need to provide their turnover at some point or another.

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While both turnover and profit look at your total sales, profit also includes some important deductions that aren’t considered when measuring turnover. Let’s say your gross profit is low in comparison to your turnover. You might need to consider ways to reduce the cost of your sales. That could be by renegotiating contracts with suppliers, for instance.

“Gross profit” refers to sales less the cost of the goods or services you sell. Next, divide it by the sum of assets at the start of the year together with assets at the end of the year. Keep in mind that turnover gets measured over a particular period. For example, this period might be during a tax year from March 1 until the end of February. You might then want to come up with ways to make your business more efficient.

Dictionary Entries Near turnover

Assuming that credit sales are sales not immediately paid in cash, the accounts receivable turnover formula is credit sales divided by average accounts receivable. The average accounts receivable is simply the average of the beginning and ending accounts receivable balances for a particular time period, such as a month or year. More often than not, the term helps to understand how fast a business collects cash from accounts receivable. This formula tells you how fast you are collecting payments when compared to your credit sales. For example, let’s say credit sales for the month amount to 600,000 ZAR and the account receivable balance is 100,000 ZAR. The aim is to maximise sales and minimise the receivable balance, thus generating a large turnover rate.

• So, if a company’s annual sales or services charged came to 100,000 ZAR, that would be its turnover.
• This kind of turnover measures how effective a business is at generating sales.
• Business leaders also use the term “turnover” to refer to how often their inventory or stock gets replaced.
• Turnover in business can refer to a variety of different measurements.
• The inventory turnover formula, which is stated as the cost of goods sold (COGS) divided by average inventory, is similar to the accounts receivable formula.

You may also need to provide your turnover if you’re applying for a small business grant or loan, looking for funding or filing a tax return. For instance, if you start building a business insurance quote with Superscript, we’ll ask you for your annual turnover so we can work out the right level of cover for you. If you’re VAT-registered, make sure you exclude VAT when calculating turnover, as this sales tax technically belongs to HMRC rather than your business. Overall turnover is a synonym for a company’s total revenues.

For example, a mutual fund might have 200 million ZAR in assets under management. The portfolio manager could sell 40 million ZAR in securities throughout a particular year. If so, the rate of turnover would be 40 million divided by 200 million.

Investors often consider funds with excessive turnover to be of low quality. Business leaders also use the term “turnover” to refer to how often their inventory or stock gets replaced. On the other hand, a high inventory turnover might imply a strong sales performance. In the same way, accounts payable turnover or sales divided by average payables is a measure of cash flow. It works out to the rate a business pays back its suppliers and vendors. Gross profit is your total sales minus the cost of goods or services sold (COGS), while net profit is sales minus COGS and expenses such as taxes and wages.

If clients don’t settle up with you in a timely fashion, your annual turnover or profit might be less than you expected. “Net profit” is the figure that’s left over during a particular period after you’ve deducted all expenses like administration costs and taxes. These include VAT for micro-businesses with an annual turnover of 1 million ZAR or less. Working capital means the difference between a company’s current assets and its current liabilities.

The inventory turnover formula, which is stated as the cost of goods sold (COGS) divided by average inventory, is similar to the accounts receivable formula. Two of the largest assets owned by a business are accounts receivable and inventory. Both of these accounts require a large cash investment, and it is important to measure how quickly a business collects cash. Turnover is a term also used in specific areas of business such as staff churn. Accounts receivable and inventory turnovers are other types of common turnover. All these types of turnover are measurements that help determine a company’s success in specific areas.

Some don’t always correlate directly with a company’s finances. Find out more about these too and how to calculate business turnover as we focus on this important accounting measure. Turnover can provide useful information about your business and its finances. The asset turnover ratio is a measure of how well a company generates revenue from its assets during the year. In the investment industry, turnover is defined as the percentage of a portfolio that is sold in a particular month or year.