Saatujen ennakoiden merkitys käyttöpääoman hallinnassa ja yrityksen kannattavuudessa

摘要

The objective of this thesis is to study the role of received advance payments inworking capital management by creating a new measurement and to study therelationship between advance payments and profitability. The study has beenconducted using narrative literature review and quantitative research methods.The research was made analyzing 108 companies listed in Helsinki StockExchange.The results indicate that 68 % of the studied companies are receiving advancepayments and the average cycle time for received advance payments is 13 days.A new key figure is created to include received advance payments into thecalculation of working capital. Received advance payments shorten the workingcapital cycle, by 13 days, when they are used in the calculation. The role ofadvance payments is not as significant as the role of receivables and inventoriesbut advance payments may have a larger role than payables if the company isreceiving noticeable amounts of advance payments. There are three brancheswhere companies are receiving more advance payments than average companies.The branches are project business and ICT and publishing sectors. There is anegative correlation between profitability and advance payments based on theresults of this study.