What is Invested Capital?

Invested capital is a concept that is applied to the amount of money that a company has had invested by stockholders, shareholders, and various other sources. The invested capital is basically how much money that the company has on hand that can be used to purchase assets for the company, including property and materials, which can be used or sold to increase the overall net worth of the business at any given time. This monetary amount will also help increase the bottom line profits for the company, as well as for the stockholders and shareholders. The official definition of invested capital is how much cash investments that the shareholders and stockholders have within the company.

There are various different ways in which a company can gain invested capital. Shareholders and stockholders are one of the most common ways for capital increases to occur within a large company. Other sources for investment capital for a business include bank loans, private loans, selling of assets, debt financing, income from technology licensing agreements, and even trade agreements between companies. Another type of investment capital that can cause an increase within the company is owner investments, which plays a bigger role within small companies or businesses that are just starting out.

Various debts incurred by daily operations also have to be accounted for when figuring out how much capital a company has. Payments for loans, taxes, materials, labor, and state licensing and insurance that are deducted from the balance sheets have to be subtracted from the overall capital of the business. This concept applies to large and small companies, because the set payments that go out every month are required operating costs, which means that these amounts can not be considered as usable capital for the company. The more the operating costs are, the lower the capital will be.

Management accounting specialists have come up with two distinct ways in which to calculate how much invested capital a specific business has. Even though they are different, the same overall monetary figure will be found. The first way to formulate a number is by using the operating approach, which states that the invested capital = operating net worth capital + capitalized operating leases + other operating assets + operating intangibles - operating liabilities - cumulative adjustments. The second formula that can be used when calculating the total capital invested is with the financial formula, which states that invested capital = total debt and leases + total equity - non-operating cash and investments.

The overall capital of a company can be a cause for alarm for management and shareholders, or it can be the cause of substantial financial rewards. Large companies that are operating at full capacity, and have a decent profit margin, generally have larger amounts of capital than smaller businesses that may be just starting out or are struggling to get by. The more successful that a company is, the more left over capital that they will have. The more capital that a company has available, the easier it will be for them to stay in business.