Financial management

Financial management is the business function concerned with profitability, expenses, cash and credit, so that the "organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible;" the latter often defined as maximizing the value of the firm for stockholders. The discipline is then tasked with the "efficient acquisition and deployment" of both short- and long-term financial resources, to ensure the objectives of the enterprise are achieved. Financial managers (FM) are specialized professionals directly reporting to senior management, often the financial director (FD); the function is seen as 'Staff', and not 'Line'. Managerial financeFinancial risk management#Corporate finance and Financial modeling #Accounting Financial management is generally concerned with short term working capital management, focusing on current assets and current liabilities, and managing fluctuations in foreign currency and product cycles, often through hedging. The function also entails the efficient and effective day-to-day management of funds, and thus overlaps treasury management. It is also involved with long term strategic financial management, focused on i.a. capital structure management, including capital raising, capital budgeting (capital allocation between business units or products), and dividend policy; these latter, in large corporates, being more the domain of "corporate finance." Specific tasks: Profit maximization happens when marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue. This is the main objective of financial management. Maintaining proper cash flow is a short run objective of financial management. It is necessary for operations to pay the day-to-day expenses e.g. raw material, electricity bills, wages, rent etc. A good cash flow ensures the survival of company; see cashflow forecast. Minimization on capital cost in financial management can help operations gain more profit. Estimating the requirement of funds: Businesses make forecast on funds needed in both short run and long run, hence, they can improve the efficiency of funding.

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Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value. Correspondingly, corporate finance comprises two main sub-disciplines.

The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financial reporting. In some sectors, the CFO is also responsible for analysis of data. Some CFOs have the title CFOO for chief financial and operating officer. In the majority of countries, finance directors (FD) typically report into the CFO and FD is the level before reaching CFO.

Financial risk management is the practice of protecting economic value in a firm by managing exposure to financial risk - principally operational risk, credit risk and market risk, with more specific variants as listed aside. As for risk management more generally, financial risk management requires identifying the sources of risk, measuring these, and crafting plans to address them. See for an overview. Financial risk management as a "science" can be said to have been born with modern portfolio theory, particularly as initiated by Professor Harry Markowitz in 1952 with his article, "Portfolio Selection"; see .

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