Is there a way to see how financially stable your employer is?

smackdog

Hello there.

Because of the current climate with regards to employment, is there a way to tell how financially secure the company you work for are doing?

The company i work for are a Ltd company of less than 100 employees, and because of the lack of work coming in id like to know how much of a shaky peg my job and colleagues jobs are in.

Ive been to the Companieshouse website but dont know what to actually look for.
There are documents you can download for £1 but i dont know which ones to investigate.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Merry Xmas when it comes!:eek:

hells_2

Look for your company's latest accounts which should be on there.
If you don't know how to read corporate accounts, just look for the 'net profit' and if it is in brackets, that's a minus, and bad. And how much they are paying out to shareholders in the limited company, and 'directors remuneration' is always a good one (tells you how much the bosses are making).

There should also be 'notes' to the accounts which explain various things and what they're doing with the money they make and turnover, etc.

duncan303

They are confusing if you are not sure how to interpret them but you can go to some local libraries (not all) mainly the larger ones and ask to be logged onto a system called FAME. Bring with you if you can the registered number of the company, not necessarily the trading name, and then you can look up for free :money:any company info, you can also get a simplified financial risk rating, but ultimately you know by working there pretty much what is going on I suspect.

Depends if you are close to a main library or not, some colleges and universities allow free access as well.


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pelirocco

hells wrote: »

Look for your company's latest accounts which should be on there.
If you don't know how to read corporate accounts, just look for the 'net profit' and if it is in brackets, that's a minus, and bad. And how much they are paying out to shareholders in the limited company, and 'directors remuneration' is always a good one (tells you how much the bosses are making).

There should also be 'notes' to the accounts which explain various things and what they're doing with the money they make and turnover, etc.

It depends if they have submitted full or abbreviated accounts as to how much info you can get , Plus accounts only show the position as at the particular year end .

hells_2

Indeed you are correct.

duncan303

here is a section of a company that happens to be dormant:

PROFITABILITY TRENDS & CHANGES There is no Profitability Trends & Changes information available for this company.
CREDIT SCORE & RATING

Current QuiScore (Year ending 30/09/2008) n.a. High Risk Previous Period's QuiScore (Year ending 30/09/2007) n.a. High Risk QuiRating (£) n.a. No QuiRating if QuiScore < 25
The QuiScores and QuiRatings, which are developed and maintained by CRIF Decision Solutions Limited, take into account a range of factors. These include the presence of any adverse documents appearing against the company on the public file and the timeliness of getting the accounts filed. In addition, the underlying economic conditions are factored in to the equation. However, the most important factors relate to the financial performance of the company as evidenced by their balance sheet and profit and loss account. In determining a score, a number of separate calculations are performed using various combinations of the key financial items – these include turnover, pre-tax profit, working capital, intangibles, cash and bank deposits, creditors, bank loans and overdrafts, current assets, current liabilities, net assets, fixed assets, share capital, reserves, shareholders funds.


HISTORICAL CREDIT SCORE & RATING30/09/200830/09/200730/09/2006Average QuiScore n.a. n.a. 40 40
Comment High Risk High Risk Caution

QuiRating (GBP) n.a. n.a. 500 500



Jumbled I know but it gives you the jist, this happens to be a small section of a well known persons' dormant companies:o

Debt_Free_Chick

No profit isn't automatically "bad". Business advisers help companies to minimise their profit in order to (legitimately) avoid tax.

You need to look at the balance sheet as well as the profit & loss account .... and to be honest, there is so much information to be analysed and evaluated that we don't stand a chance of interpreting it all.

In short, I don't see that analysing the past is going to give you any comfort about the present, let alone the future!

duncan303

With respect I disagree.

Much is placed on this forum about credit checks and credit scores and some people find them very usefull.

I chose FAME because, as per my example it contains, QuiScore and QuiRating which means that the layperson has a mild opportunity to make a judgement.

When I do business with a company I always check company records because I am in effect Lending them Money, I see no difference when somebody lends their time in lieu.

You can check ratings in your sector and view the trends. If you are one of 10 chocolate makers with a certain number of employees who is clearly against the trend, then I might consider changing ship.

Anyway IMHO I do not think that the information the OP seeks is valueless.


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Debt_Free_Chick

I just don't see that the average person stands a chance of interpreting and analysing the vast array of data that could be presented to them.

If it works for you, fair enough. But no-one - not even the ratings agencies - saw the failure of Lehmans and other "big companies" coming.

It's even more difficult with a private company - as in the OP's case - as there are fewer publicly available records to inspect.

In the current environment, a good credit record means nothing as the financial instutions aren't lending. And if you work for an employer who needs to borrow to see through a bad patch, that good credit record will not guarantee that your employer gets the funding they need.

duncan303

I am sorry but I insist on taking further issue with this.

The OP asked

is there a way to tell how financially secure the company you work for are doing?

I referenced credit checks because this site involves itself primarily with individuals personal credit, and then only for the purposes of borrowing money it takes no account of net assets for example. Whereas the Qui quotients are a mixture of parameters. And they are designed to give an indication of the "financial security" of a business, exactly what the OP asked for, giving ratings such as High Risk, Caution, Secure. etc you can't get much simpler wording than that

Obviously there are exceptions in turbulent times, but these guys are wanting to try and anticipate where the money is going to come from to put dinner on the table for them and thier families....

Not every company has an overdraft or securities , borrowing may not be the issue, they may be operating on capital reserves for example which may give the same day to day indicators.


I'll continue to help where/if I can

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Debt_Free_Chick

But is it not based on filed accounts?