Cash Flow

Dear Karen: Our business always has a backlog of payments due. How can we cut it? Answer: Offer incentives to decrease collection time. You might try giving a 2% discount for payments received within 10 days of invoicing, said John Formento Jr., an analyst at Sageworks, a financial information company. Examine your customers' payment history and contact slow-paying customers to work out a schedule. "If necessary, decline further credit offerings to them," Formento said.

Comcast Corp. beat analysts' estimates with a 26% increase in fourth-quarter profit, but two NBCUniversal units continued to struggle: the NBC broadcast network and Universal Pictures. For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, the Philadelphia cable television giant posted net income of $1.29 billion, or 47 cents a share, compared with $1.02 billion, or 36 cents, for the year-earlier period. Revenue climbed 3% to $15 billion. Once again, the company's core business of providing bundles of cable TV channels and high-speed Internet service bolstered its financial results.

Dear Karen: I need better cash flow. Any tips? Answer: Review your product inventory. Most companies stock items that are not selling or selling too slowly, said Sheldon Kopin, a consultant at JBS Associates in Cincinnati. "If possible, return these items to your supplier for credit, or exchange them for better-selling products," he said. If you can't, sell them at a discount and don't reorder. Another way to improve cash flow is to pay down outstanding debt, Kopin said.

Ford Motor Co. has reinstated its quarterly dividend after cutting the payment more than five years ago as it prepared to navigate a turbulent economy. Ford will pay 5 cents a share to holders of Class B and common stock as of Jan. 31, 2012. The payment will be made March 1. "We have made tremendous progress in reducing debt and generating consistent positive earnings and cash flow," said Executive Chairman Bill Ford. "The board believes it is important to share the benefits of our improved financial performance with our shareholders.

Facebook Inc., the world's largest Internet social network, said Tuesday that it made more money than it spent, attaining a positive cash flow for the first time since it was started in a Harvard dorm room nearly six years ago. The Palo Alto company also said it had increased to 300 million active users. The site reached 150 million users in only five years, a fast growth rate by any measure. But like sprinter Usain Bolt, Facebook atomized its own speed record this year by climbing to 300 million users from 150 million in a little over nine months.

Dear Karen: I lie awake at night worrying about bills because my revenue is strong but cash flow is uneven. What can I do? Answer: Put in place the infrastructure your company needs to nurture profitability. "Every day you lag behind on collecting on invoices, you're financing your company's operations internally," said Matthew Kuchinsky, a certified public accountant and partner at New York-based accounting firm Citrin Cooperman & Co.

The Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce will play host to a business development meeting Monday to help entrepreneurs learn better cash-flow management. The free event features Pamela Curry speaking on "Picking Your Accounting Software" and Thomas Clark discussing "Cash-Flow Management." The meeting is part of a new series of monthly business development workshops. Each workshop includes a short presentation of the topic, followed by a one-on-one question-and-answer session.

Comcast Corp., the cable operator bidding for AT&T Corp.'s cable unit, reported stronger cash flow, boosted by subscriber growth for its digital cable and high-speed data business, although its net profit declined in the second quarter. The third-largest U.S. cable operator also raised its projection for its digital cable and high-speed data subscriber base for the year, but warned its capital expenditures to upgrade its systems would be higher than earlier expected.

Now that the stock market has recovered much of the ground it lost during July, many investors are scratching their heads wondering just what happened. Among the unresolved questions is this: Did changing mutual-fund cash flows cause the sell-off? As mutual funds have mushroomed into a $3.2-trillion industry, triple the level of six years ago, many observers have come to fear their influence.

Question: I'm a restaurant and janitorial supply distributor who has been in business for two years with continual growth. I would like to acquire another, similar business to further that growth. I have found some companies for sale, but I need funding. Can I get a Small Business Administration loan for this purpose? Answer: Lenders that specialize in SBA-guaranteed loans are known as "cash flow lenders."

New federal debit card rules won't kick in until Saturday. But Bank of America wasted no time in announcing a $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases to make up for the expected drop in revenue. The rules in question limit how much banks can charge to process debit card transactions. Those fees now average 44 cents per sale and are paid by merchants. After Saturday, banks won't be able to charge more than 21 cents. The Federal Reserve has determined that this is a "reasonable and proportional" amount, reflecting how much it actually costs banks to process a debit card transaction.

Tribune Co. asked the judge in its bankruptcy case for authority to pay management bonuses for 2011 ranging from $16.4 million to $42.5 million. The potential payments, which are slightly lower than those requested last year, would be made to 640 management employees based on how much operating cash flow the company generates this year, relative to a plan approved by the board in February, court documents showed Wednesday. Tribune, which is waiting for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey to decide between two competing plans for restructuring the company's balance sheet before it can emerge from bankruptcy court, said in January that it generated $635 million in cash flow last year.

Dear Karen: Our business always has a backlog of payments due. How can we cut it? Answer: Offer incentives to decrease collection time. You might try giving a 2% discount for payments received within 10 days of invoicing, said John Formento Jr., an analyst at Sageworks, a financial information company. Examine your customers' payment history and contact slow-paying customers to work out a schedule. "If necessary, decline further credit offerings to them," Formento said.

Two sheriff's deputies sat conspicuously in the lobby of the Wilshire Hotel in Koreatown on Thursday. They were there to collect a multimillion-dollar debt. In March, a Superior Court judge ordered the company that runs the hotel to pay the city of Los Angeles nearly $3.5 million for unpaid transit occupancy taxes, known as bed taxes. City officials say the company, Majestic Towers, never paid up. So they turned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which serves court orders, to play debt collector.

Tribune Co. said Wednesday that operating cash flow at its two largest publishing units ? the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune ? was essentially flat in 2010 compared to 2009, while overall operating cash flow increased $140 million to $635 million. "The past year showed substantial improvement over 2009," Chandler Bigelow, Tribune's chief financial officer, said in a statement. The increase was attributed largely to the performance of Tribune's television stations across the country, which benefited from expansion of local programming and a surge in fourth-quarter political advertising.

Question: I am concerned about my shares of Safeway Inc. and wonder how the company is going to hold up against its competition. Answer: The logic of investing in the stock of grocery chains has traditionally been that people must eat, but the business of selling food has become more competitive. The nation's third-largest retail grocery chain, Safeway operates about 1,700 stores in the U.S. and Canada ? including 312 Vons stores in Southern California and Nevada ?

Hewlett-Packard Co. restated first-quarter cash flow from operations, lowering it 18% because of an accounting error. Cash flow from operations, or actual cash generated from running the business, was $647 million, the world's second-largest computer maker said in a regulatory filing. Hewlett-Packard said it had $791 million when it reported results Feb. 25 and had $1.72 billion a year earlier.

Viacom Inc. said third-quarter cash flow may be $200 million less than previously forecast because of lost revenue and higher costs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the media company was forecast to generate 2001 cash flow--or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization--of $5.6 billion, with $1.5 billion in the third quarter, Viacom President Mel Karmazin said, citing estimates from Goldman, Sachs & Co.

NASCAR driver Ryan Newman was filming an interview about his new sponsor, Tornados snack foods, at Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier this year when something caught his eye. Nearby fans had been blocked from getting too close to Newman. So he grabbed a plate of Tornados, waded into the crowd and handed out samples. "I've done more things than I ever have to keep good sponsors" because everyone in NASCAR "has had to stretch their necks out a little bit to make up for the bad times," Newman said.

Tribune Co. late Friday filed a revised plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that would keep the firm intact and slash its debt. Under the proposal, Tribune's creditors would share ownership of the Chicago-based company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and other media properties, the company said in a news release. In the filing, the company said it expected its operating cash flow to rise this year to $617 million, up $123 million from 2009.