Working Capital Calculator
The short-term resources a business has left after covering what it owes in the next year — the buffer that keeps day-to-day operations funded.
Working capital calculator
The cushion of short-term resources a business has left over after covering its short-term obligations.
Educational illustration only. Negative working capital means current liabilities exceed current assets — not automatically a crisis for every business model, but worth investigating if it wasn’t planned.
The formula
Working Capital = Current Assets − Current Liabilities. Unlike the current ratio, this is expressed as a rupee amount rather than a ratio — useful for seeing the actual size of the cushion (or shortfall), not just whether it exists.
When negative working capital isn’t a red flag
Some business models — supermarkets and other fast-turnover retailers, for example — routinely operate with negative working capital by design: they collect cash from customers immediately but pay suppliers on extended credit terms. For most businesses, though, consistently negative working capital signals a real cash-flow risk worth investigating.