Use the 2 attached files as reference for the questions. No data is needed to be changed or filled in on the Excel sheet.
Read Case 26: Mountain Village Clinic, Cash Budgeting, on pages 175-177 of Pink and Song (2018) (Links to an external site.).
Answer the following questions related to this case. Use the Excel spreadsheet as needed, but type your answers into a Word document.
Construct a monthly cash budget for the clinic for the period January through June 2018. What is the maximum monthly loss during the six-month planning period? What is the maximum cumulative borrowing balance? (For purposes of this question, disregard any interest payments on short-term bank loans or interest received from investing surplus funds.)
The monthly cash budget you have prepared assumes that all cash flows occur on the same day each month. Suppose the clinic’s outflows tend to cluster at the beginning of the month, while collections tend to be heaviest toward the end of each month.
How would this imbalance affect the validity of the monthly budget?
What could be done to correct any inaccuracies that might occur?
Construct the clinic’s daily cash budget for January. Does it indicate the same maximum borrowing requirement for the month as does the monthly budget? Does the end-of-January borrowing requirement in the daily budget match the end-of-January borrowing requirement in the monthly budget? If not, explain the difference.
Should seasonal variations be incorporated into the clinic’s target cash balance? In other words, should the balance be higher during months when cash needs are greater?
The only receipts shown on the clinic’s cash budget are collections. What other types of cash inflows could occur?
Consider the interest paid on short-term borrowings and earned on short-term investments. Modify the monthly portion of the model to include these cash flows. Do these flows have a significant impact on estimated borrowing requirements?
The clinic’s cash management policy is to invest any surplus funds in marketable securities.
Can you suggest an investment policy that would provide liquidity and safety yet offer the clinic a reasonable return on its investment? Specifically, describe the types of securities, the desired maturities, the expected returns, and the risks that would be involved.
Would your suggestions be the same for a business whose cash balances were projected to be in the millions of dollars, as opposed to thousands of dollars?
What would be the impact on the monthly net cash flows if actual billings from November 2017 to June 2018 were 20 percent below the forecasted amounts? What if they were 50 percent below the forecasted amounts? In your answers, assume that purchases and labor costs, as well as other expenses, cannot be adjusted downward during this period even though realized volume was below that forecasted.
Suppose the clinic’s third-party payers changed their payment patterns and began paying as follows: 10 percent in the month of sale, 20 percent in the following month, and 70 percent in the second month versus the old 20-20-60 pattern. How large a credit line would the clinic require?
On the basis of your analyses, how large a credit line would you recommend that the clinic seek from First Bank?
