#72 Debtors Turnover Analaysis

In auditing debtor balance, auditor will perform some analysis of the debtors turnover of the audit client, and compared the result to prior year to identify unusual fluctuations.

Debtors Turnover (day) is computed as below:

Average Debtor Balance / Sales x 365 days = Debtor Turnover (day)

Debtors turnover ratio indicates the velocity of debt collection of a firm. In simple words it indicates the number of times average debtors (receivable) are turned over during a year.

We will expecting a deteriorating debtor turnover (day) in this gloomy economy environment. To illustrate with an example, a customer of our audit client would take longer period to repay its outstanding balance due on time, and herein increase the number of day the receivable stays in the debtors balance.

Customers are squeezing their creditors by pro-longed their repayment period. Our audit client may, in another leg, delay the repayment to its (audit client's) suppliers.

A economy efficient would have been created, as the delaying in repayment has direct impact on the ultimate's suppliers decision on resource allocation. In afraid of selling items to doubtful customers, the ultimate suppliers might have cancel/ stop the supplies to our audit client.

As such, working capital need to be analyzed by auditor to identify unusual circumstances that might occur.