The balance sheet provides a snapshot of a company’s financial status at a specific point in time, listing its assets, liabilities, and equity. By excluding inventory, and other less liquid assets, the quick ratio focuses on the company’s more liquid assets. Both the current ratio and quick ratio measure a company’s short-term liquidity, or its ability to generate enough cash to pay off all debts should they become due at once. Although they’re both measures of a company’s financial health, they’re slightly different.
- A quick ratio of 1.0 means that for every $1 a company has in current liabilities, it also has $1 in quick assets.
- However, the current ratio includes inventory and prepaid expenses in assets because assets are defined as anything that could be liquified within a year for the current ratio.
- The higher the quick ratio, the better a company’s liquidity and financial health, but it important to look at other related measures to assess the whole picture of a company’s financial health.
The quick ratio is considered more conservative than the current ratio because its calculation factors in fewer items. However, the current ratio includes inventory and prepaid expenses in assets because assets are defined as anything that could be liquified within a year for the current ratio. The quick ratio, instead, focuses on very short-term, highly liquid assets, keeping inventory and prepaid expenses out. The quick ratio is the barometer of a company’s capability and inability to pay its current obligations. Investors, suppliers, and lenders are more interested to know if a business has more than enough cash to pay its short-term liabilities rather than when it does not. Having a well-defined liquidity ratio is a signal of competence and sound business performance that can lead to sustainable growth.
It’s also known as the acid-test ratio and is worth learning—no matter your industry. The quick ratio helps you track your liquidity, which is your ability to pay bills in the short term. Using the quick ratio can help you avoid cash flow problems and maintain good relationships with your creditors and suppliers. With a quick ratio of over 1.0, Johnson & Johnson appears to be in a decent position to cover its current liabilities as its liquid assets are greater than the total of its short-term debt obligations. Procter & Gamble, on the other hand, may not be able to pay off its current obligations using only quick assets as its quick ratio is well below 1, at 0.45.
What is quick ratio?
Upgrading to a paid membership gives you access to our extensive collection of plug-and-play Templates designed to power your performance—as well as CFI’s full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs.
Quick assets are assets a company expects to convert to cash in 90 days or less. Current liabilities are obligations the company will need to pay within the next year. If a company’s financials don’t provide a breakdown of its quick assets, you can still calculate the quick ratio.
The power of the quick ratio in financial analysis
In most companies, inventory takes time to liquidate, although a few rare companies can turn their inventory fast enough to consider it a quick asset. Prepaid expenses, though an asset, cannot be used to pay for current liabilities, so they’re omitted from the quick ratio. The current ratio is the same at the quick ratio, except that the current ratio includes inventory and prepaid expenses in the numerator. This difference is not an issue for services businesses, which rarely need to maintain much inventory.
Small businesses are prone to unexpected financial hits that can disrupt cash flow. If there’s a cash shortage, you may have to dig into your personal funds to pay employees, lenders, and bills. Ideally, accountants and finance professionals should use multiple metrics to understand a company’s status. This capital could be used to generate company growth or invest in new markets. There is often a fine line between balancing short-term cash needs and spending capital for long-term potential.
Advantages and Limitations of the Quick Ratio
When you leave a comment on this article, please note that if approved, it will be publicly available and visible at the bottom of the article on this blog. For more information on how Sage uses and looks after your personal data and the data protection rights you have, please read our Privacy Policy. Here’s a look at both ratios, how to calculate them, and their key differences. Pete Rathburn is a copy editor and fact-checker with expertise in economics and personal finance and over twenty years of experience in the classroom. Charlene Rhinehart is a CPA , CFE, chair of an Illinois CPA Society committee, and has a degree in accounting and finance from DePaul University.
A higher quick ratio signals that a company can be more liquid and generate cash quickly in case of emergency. Whether accounts receivable is a source of quick, ready cash remains a debatable topic, and depends on the credit terms that the company extends to its customers. A company that needs advance payments or allows only 30 days to the customers for payment will be in a better liquidity position than a company that gives 90 days.
What Are the Limitations of the Current Ratio?
The quick ratio demonstrates the immediate amount of money a company has to pay its current bills. The current ratio may overstate a company’s ability to cover short-term liabilities as a company may find difficulty in quickly liquidating all inventory, for example. On the other hand, removing inventory might not reflect an accurate picture of liquidity for some industries. For example, supermarkets move inventory very quickly, and their stock would likely represent a large portion of their current assets.
Why Is It Called the Quick Ratio?
Total current liabilities are often calculated as the sum of various accounts including accounts payable, wages payable, current portions of long-term debt, and taxes payable. On the other hand, a company could negotiate rapid receipt of payments from its customers and secure longer terms of payment from its suppliers, which would keep liabilities on the books longer. By converting accounts receivable to cash faster, it may have a healthier quick ratio and be fully equipped to pay off its current liabilities.
A company can’t exist without cashflow and the ability to pay its bills as they come due. By measuring its quick ratio, a company can better understand what resources they have in the very short-term in case they need to liquidate current assets. Though other liquidity ratios measure a company’s ability to be solvent in the short-term, the quick ratio is among the most aggressive in deciding short-term liquidity capabilities. They help creditors assess a company’s ability to repay a loan, assist potential investors in understanding a company’s financial health, and provide insights for internal decision-making processes. The quick ratio, often referred to as the “acid test ratio,” is a liquidity metric used to gauge a company’s capacity to pay its short-term obligations using its most liquid assets. The key distinction here is the term “most liquid assets”—these are assets that can be converted into cash quickly (hence the word “quick” in the ratio’s name).
Marketable securities are short-term assets that can take a few days to turn into cash. Examples of marketable securities include stocks and money market funds. Similar to the current ratio, a company that has a quick ratio of more than one is usually considered less of a financial risk than a company that has a quick ratio of less than one. If you don’t have any internship or work experience that involved using the quick ratio, you can discuss any coursework or personal experiences with this calculation.