The financial results are displayed in the projects description and summarized in a financial table
October uses two different credit analyses : standard and instant decisioning
For Instant projects analysed with the Transaction X-Ray scoring, the key figures displayed on the project description will be different as we only analyse bank transactions.
Every project published on the platform has a key financial figures section. It includes the main financial indicators and ratios analysed either by the October analysts when studying the company, or reviewed by October's automated scoring models.
Not all of us are finance professionals. We created this tutorial to explain the financial indicators and how to interpret them.
Key figures on projects analysed by Transaction X-Ray
For Instant Projects analysed with Transaction X-Ray, the key figures displayed on the project description will be different as we only analyse bank transactions on the last 12 months. The borrower's financial information will include:
Categories | Definition | Source of information |
Revenues | Sum of all the banking transactions tagged as revenues by the bank (ie. the credit) on the last 12 months. | Extracted by October from the banking transactions analysis |
Free cash flows | Free cash flows ( | Extracted by October from the banking transactions analysis |
The monthly income / monthly expense ratio, | Ratio of total income transactions to total expense over a 12-month period. | Extracted by October from the banking transactions analysis |
Average monthly balance | Average bank balance by the end of the month, calculated on the last 12 months. | Extracted by October from the banking transactions analysis |
Payments history | Companies need to be up to date with their bank and public entities payments to request a loan on October. | Informed by the borrower |
Debts | The amount of short term and long term debts hold by the borrower at the moment of the request. | Informed by the borrower |
The equity | The amount paid by the partners or shareholders at the creation, plus the profits (or minus the losses) made annually by the company and not distributed as dividends. | Informed by the borrower |
You can recognise an Instant project by the project description. On all Instant Projects, you will find a dedicated box indicating the automatic scoring model (Financial X-Ray or Transaction X-Ray) used to analyse the project.
Key figures on standard projects
For standard projects, we present some elements of the company's balance sheet in a table. The easiest way is to get to the heart of the matter with an example : let’s imagine a company called November (😉) borrowing €200,000 at 5% over 18 months.
1. The balance sheet
The accounting period usually lasts 12 months and is a "picture" at a given time of a company's situation. The balance sheet is made up of equal assets and liabilities. To simplify, assets represent what the company holds while liabilities represent what it owes. On the assets side, we find in particular its fixed assets (land held by the company for example) and its current assets such as inventory or accounts receivable (the amount customers owe to the company). On the liabilities side, we find the common stock, provisions or debts. Common stock is part of a larger concept called equity: the equity represents a guarantee for investors because it allows a company to absorb losses. You got it: the starting point for financial analysis is accounting.
2. The income statement
Not all the figures presented in the table of the Project page come from the balance sheet. The turnover, the earnings before interest taxes depreciations and amortisations (EBITDA) and the net income are subtotals calculated from the income statement. This approach is complementary to the balance sheet approach.
The turnover represents the net sales generated by a business over a period of time. Therefore, it measures the attractiveness of a company's offer. It can be interesting to have a look at the turnover evolution but it does not give any indication of the company's ability to generate profits. For example, if the turnover increases significantly but the costs increase even more, the company will lose money.
To do this, we study the EBITDA. The EBITDA is a profitability calculation: if it is positive, it means the company generates enough turnover to cover all its expenses.
Finally, the net income is the last of the subtotals. It reflects if the company makes profit or loss and is expressed as a percentage of the turnover.
Companies have a sustainable but variable need for liquidity. The operating working capital requirements (OWCR) is the amount of cash needed by the company to pay its current liabilities. It can be positive or negative: if it is negative, it means that the company has no immediate cash requirement. The need for OWC varies over time but it is crucial. A company can go bankrupt even if it is solvent if it does not manage to get paid quickly enough by its customers. This is a key issue for companies, which must ensure that they generate enough cash to meet their deadlines on an ongoing basis. Some sectors, such as the toy sector, are highly exposed to seasonality. Going back to our example, in 2018, the working capital requirement of the November project in 2018 was 16 days (i.e. its cash requirement for 2018 corresponds to 16 days of turnover).
There is still one key concept to define: the net debt. Net of what? The net debt refers to the total debt of a company minus cash on hand, to obtain an image of the company's actual debt (because this cash could offset part of its debt). If the net debt is negative, the company possesses more cash than its financial obligations.
A lot of notions all at once? Rest assured, we are finished with the definitions. It is now time to move on to the interpretation part.
3. Financial ratios
On the project page, you can find several financial ratios:
The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is a solvency ratio. Widely used in financial analysis, this ratio is simple to use and quick to calculate. It measures the company's ability to repay its debt based on its EBITDA. It shows how many years it would take for a company to pay back using all its EBITDA: in the table presented above, it would take 0.32 years to November to repay its debt with its 2018 EBITDA.
The net debt-to-equity ratio is called the gearing ratio and measures the degree of dependency of a company on external financing. In our example, net debt represented 19.68% of the company’s equity in 2018. The lower the ratio, the better the company situation. Indeed, its equity represents a guarantee for creditors.
Finally, let us look at the equity-to-assets ratio. In our example, shareholders' equity represented 44.2% of November's balance sheet total in 2018. Remember that equity is part of the company's liabilities and that assets are equal to liabilities. In this case, a higher ratio is preferred because high equity shows that the company's manager believes in its activity and look for capital, which represents a guarantee.
At the bottom of the Project page you will find a last key indicator, the FCCR (Fixed Charge Coverage Ratio) which represents the company's repayment capacity. The higher the FCCR, the greater the margin of safety. For example, a FCCR of 1.5 means that the company has a 50% cushion against its ability to repay.
FCCR < 1 : insufficient profitability to cover debt repayment charges -> project rejected
FCCR = 1 : profitability just sufficient to cover debt repayment charges -> presentation to the Credit Committee will be considered depending on the history and management of the company and contextual elements
FCCR > 1 : profitability sufficient to cover debt repayment charges with a safety cushion -> presentation to the Credit Committee will be considered taking into account contextual elements.
For the Instant Projects, the FCCR could be below 1. Why? The data we have accumulated shows the FCCR>1 criteria is not as discriminating as one would imagine, when combined with other factors, as we do in Financial X-Ray.
Conclusion
That's all for the key figures 😴.
For the most courageous, we will conclude with some practical aspects:
The financial analysis we propose is given as an indication, based on the information provided by borrowers.
Based on this analysis, we contrast the figures with reality to get to know the company better. These quantitative and qualitative analyses are the basis for the projet rating and interest rate at which a company borrows. Here again, we will not dwell any more on this: for the curious, here is a tutorial on the project selection and rating.