Cash Release Calculator
Most businesses are funding a large, invisible loan to their customers. Put in six numbers and this works out how much cash is sitting in your cash conversion cycle, what a single day is worth, and how much you would release by collecting a few days faster. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Your numbers
Annual figures. Use whatever currency you like — the answer comes back in the same one.
What it means
Updates as you type.
Receivables are valued at revenue per day; stock and payables at cost per day, which is why a day of stock is worth less than a day of sales. The released figure is what leaves your balance sheet once, not a saving that repeats every year — but it stays out as long as the shorter cycle holds.
01 How it works
Three numbers, one loan
The cash conversion cycle is the number of days between paying for something and being paid for it. It is the sum of two things working against you and one working for you:
cash conversion cycle = DSO + DIO − DPO DSO = (receivables ÷ revenue) × 365 how long customers take to pay you DIO = (inventory ÷ COGS) × 365 how long stock sits before it sells DPO = (payables ÷ COGS) × 365 how long you take to pay suppliers
Every day in that cycle is money you have already spent and cannot use. Multiply the days by what a day is worth — revenue divided by 365 for customer credit, cost divided by 365 for stock — and the cycle stops being a ratio and becomes a number the board understands.
02 What to do with the answer
Where the days usually are
The gap between terms and reality
If you sell on 30 days and collect in 61, the first 31 days are not a market condition — they are invoices going out late, invoices that cannot be processed, and nobody calling until it is already overdue.
Owner: collections · see DSOStock covering a forecast error
Safety stock is insurance against forecast error and unreliable lead times. Improving either one is usually cheaper than holding the cash that hides them.
Owner: supply chain · see DIOPaying suppliers later
The one lever that works in your favour, up to the point where suppliers price it back in or stop prioritising you in a shortage. Negotiate terms rather than simply paying late.
Owner: procurement · see DPOWhether profit is becoming cash at all
Divide operating cash flow by profit. Below 1.0 for more than a couple of quarters means working capital is absorbing the earnings — and this calculator shows you where.
See cash conversion ratio03 Doing it for real
The hard part is not the arithmetic
Working this out once, on a slide, is easy. Running it every month by customer, product and site is where it stalls — because receivables live in one system, stock in another, and payables in a third, and each has its own idea of what counts.
That is exactly the problem a governed data layer solves: connect the three sources, define DSO, DIO and DPO once, and the cycle becomes a live number with an owner against each component rather than a quarterly exercise.
See your real cycle, not an estimate
Connect the receivables, stock and payables you already have, and the cycle becomes a number you can act on weekly.