Vendor payment period

The last of the working capital trio. How to calculate your accounts payable days or vendor days outstanding

We take the amount we owe to our vendors at the end of the period and divide it by the COGS (including the direct shipment COGS)[i]. We then multiply the result with the trading days represented in the total COGS.

Accounts payable or vendor days outstanding are useful when wanting to compare your inventory holding with how quickly you pay your vendors. If you not taking settlement discount, your payable days should exceed your inventory days.

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[i] Remember when we calculate inventory days we exclude direct shipment COGS from our inventory