Operating Cash Flow Ratio

  

Categories: Accounting, Metrics

See: Cash Flow. See: Operating Cash Flow. See: Operating Cash Flow Margin. They’re the same things, roughly.

You operate a company, and sell stuff to create revenues flowing into the company. You have expenses beneath those revs. Subtract the expenses from the revs and you have cash flow.

The specific issue here is the cash. That is, if you have a company that made $40 million in cash after having spent $100 million on a tractor smelting company that would last 25 years, then the operating cash flow would have to be adjusted. You'd depreciate that $100 mil to the tune of $4 million a year for 25 years.

Pre-tax operating profits then? Add back $96 million, and blammo...it was a great year for the little company that could.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is marginal revenue?54 Views

00:00

finance a la Shmoop what is marginal revenue well it's that last dollar the [money racing to the finish line]

00:09

last sale of a Sunday at baskin-robbins before the year closes at midnight on [ice cream sale]

00:14

New Year's Eve it's that last flying car sale

00:18

you made it at 11:58 p.m. as the ball was dropping in Manhattan sold it for a [ball floating in space]

00:23

hundred grand even felt different from the first car you sold this year why

00:28

well because from an accounting perspective it had already been built

00:31

shipped Frette painted with that new flying car smell smell yeah and the [flying with air freshener]

00:36

revenue had generated was likely meaningfully more profitable or at least

00:39

from an accounting perspective then the first car sold why well because so many

00:44

of its costs had already been accounted for or paid for or amortized on the [clip board check list]

00:49

books that factory that stamped out its last product for the year already had a

00:54

year's worth of high use behind it amer tizen the cost of the factory and

00:59

everything that went into winning that last marginal dollar of revenue so that

01:04

from an accounting perspective to make the first sale of that flying tesla for

01:07

a hundred grand well that cost a lawn and company like a billion dollars to

01:11

make the millionth test and sell it for a hundred grand well as it was

01:15

completely made by the robots a you know cost Elon in company only about 20 grand

01:20

like way higher profit margins the key concept to worry about when you think

01:24

about marginal revenues is the marginal contribution to profits which that last

01:30

dollar brings to the bottom line party anyway we hope you got something out of [dollars meeting together]

01:35

this video it's probably one of the last ones not to be made by robots least

01:39

around here

Up Next

Finance: What are Margins?
212 Views

What are margins? Margin refers to the difference between the actual value of stock owned and the amount the investor borrows from their broker. In...

Finance: What is contribution margin?
12 Views

When assessing the amount of profitability in a company’s various services and/or products, the contribution margin is a metric that is relied up...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)