Most growing companies do not have a profit problem. They have a cash problem that hides inside inventory, receivables, and payables. This toolkit shows you how to find it, size it, and release it.
The Working Capital Diagnostic Toolkit is a practical guide plus a ready-to-use Excel model for owners, finance managers, and consultants who need to analyze a company's cash conversion cycle and turn the findings into a concrete action plan. Everything is explained step by step, with a fully worked fictional case company (Nordwind Maschinenbau GmbH, a mid-sized German manufacturer) so you can see every calculation before applying it to your own numbers.
What you get:
1. A 9-page PDF guide covering the three drivers of working capital: inventory (DIO), receivables (DSO), and payables (DPO). For each driver you get the formula, the levers that move it, and the management practices that sustain the improvement. A five-step diagnostic process takes you from raw financial statements to a prioritized action plan.
2. A working Excel model with five tabs: Instructions, Inputs, CCC Calculator, Release and Sensitivity, and Scorecard. Enter twelve figures from two years of financial statements and the model computes DIO, DSO, DPO, the cash conversion cycle, and net working capital for both years, with the year-on-year change. Set your own target days for each driver and the model quantifies the cash release potential in currency terms, plus the cash value of every five days of improvement. The model is pre-filled with the fictional Nordwind case so you can see it working before you replace the data with your own.
3. A diagnostic scorecard: eleven yes-or-no questions that rate working capital governance from poor to strong, so the review becomes a repeatable monthly routine rather than a one-off exercise.
The worked case shows a company whose cash conversion cycle deteriorated from 81 to 109 days while revenue grew, tying up an extra 3.6 million in net working capital, and quantifies a realistic recovery of about 3.0 million from achievable improvements in each driver.
All example data is fictional. No macros, no locked cells, no external links: every formula is visible and editable. Suitable for owner-managed businesses, FP&A teams, and consultants preparing a working capital review. This is an analytical toolkit, not financial advice.
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Source: Best Practices in Cash Flow Management, Working Capital Management PDF: Working Capital Diagnostic Toolkit PDF (PDF) Document, Signal & Runway
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