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Corporate cash

Topics: Beginners: Corporate cash

acetheal

Friday, March 4, 2016 - 08:21 am Click here to edit this post
I would have thought this was already covered somewhere, and I'm sorry if I missed it but, I've spent hours searching through the forums and documentation already.
I understand that corporations need to have some cash on hand, but why is my enterprise automatically taking out loans to give them more. I've never seen any of my corporations below 30B SC$, which at this point would keep them running for more than a year without selling anything. My enterprise seems to think the corporations should have enough cash to support themselves in case the sales staff takes a 2 year vacation. And, who knows, maybe they would keep getting even more cash if I wasn't constantly trying to not take loans that I don't need. What cash level will they be happy with? Is there some place that I can set a range of money they should have, or at least tell my enterprise to stop giving them more? I thought I saw an automatic cash transfer selection somewhere, but I can only find the line in one of the financial reports now. In case it helps, it's Acerprise on WG. Thanks

Aries

Friday, March 4, 2016 - 03:35 pm Click here to edit this post
You are right that corporations will receive auto-transfers from the enterprise if they get below a cash level they are comfortable with. Typically, this will never be your biggest problem, it simply identifies a problem earlier than would have occurred otherwise. I would assume it is your goal that your corporations would become profitable and if they are repeating a process of auto-cash transfers then there is something wrong with their ability to generate profit.

Reviewing your enterprise, my guess is you are following an old guide. I see you are ignoring effectivity upgrades and seek to pay a low wage. It will be very difficult to manage an enterprise with this policy and see a profit. Most of your corps are currently under 50% hiring. A lower wage, even with full employment, effects your corporate welfare index, reducing your corps production output.

I find the most effective enterprises typically set a wage just above what computer countries pay, around 301-310. This best ensures full employment, which makes it more likely the corps will profit from operations. Effectivity upgrades pay off by maintaining full production with less workers.

I would recommend if the cash amount you have in enterprise is all that you have available, you try these changes and work to make your current corporations profitable before building additional corps. This will involve giving them time to complete the process upgrades. If you continue to build, you will take on more debt and, despite the game message typically attempting to alleviate fears on debts, you risk your enterprise going defunct.

acetheal

Friday, March 4, 2016 - 09:18 pm Click here to edit this post
I considered putting this in the problems section, but I am still pretty new, so maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I had a really hard time figuring out why my corps hiring rate dropped so low right after they were built. I understand hiring only 50% of all the workers if that is all that's available for just one job type, but shouldn't that mean that unemployed population for that one job type would be zero? For a long time it seemed people would rather be unemployed, because there were massive amounts of unemployed pop in every category. But ok, maybe there was something else I was missing, now most of the countries now have a job type with zero unemployment. Hoping to solve my employment problem, I changed my target salaries to 300%, but they only change 5% per month. Yes I saw that you can set a new corps starting salary rate, but only after they were already built. I have considered dismissing this enterprise to start over, building new corps with the 300% salaries already in place. I think the GMs should consider making something other than 100% the default. I would think that even 200% or so would make it less of a crash to start with.
I stopped the effectivity upgrades because the jobs that were almost always lowest were the high tech ones. I will continue them later, but right now it seemed another negative on the financials that would also not help my hiring problems.
So, while they are for the most part losing money now, it's not much, and fixes are on their way. I think I got those parts figured out. And I know I bumped up the supply orders right away, which would take some extra cash. I guess my biggest concern at this point is: what cash level will the corps be 'comfortable with'? I've looked at many random corps around the world and seen their cash levels anywhere from 20B to 123B. I'm pretty sure that 123B was an anomaly though because the next highest I saw was 82B (I think). Anyway, the average seemed to be around 45B, but it was a wide spread, hardly concentrated at all. And next question: is there a way to set their comfort level or is this another suggestion for GMs that I'm making right now? Thanx for helping Aries,
Ace

Aries

Friday, March 4, 2016 - 10:11 pm Click here to edit this post
I believe the minimum amount of cash corporations will typically be comfortable with is $30 Billion. Less than that, or maybe slightly above, and the corporation will take cash from the enterprise. When skimming cash from enterprises, as some do, I would recommend allowing corporations to keep about $45 Billion.

This amount is not a setting that can be changed. I believe the reason for it is to prevent abuse. If you close a corp, I do not believe there is a mechanic to transfer debt or negative cash to the controlling entity. To prevent indebted corps, or corps that spend into negative cash, from avoiding financial obligations when closing, a minimum cash level is enforced.

On supplies, ouch, I didn't notice that the first time. Be vary wary on changing from the default amount of stock. If a corp is closed, or taken by an earthquake, all stock supplies are lost without compensation. Consider setting a supply buying strategy that works for you but setting the stock amounts back to default. Also, your supply quality is very low and will affect your produced product quality and, by extension, sales. Consider setting supply quality to at least 180 and as high as 215.


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