The financial architecture is a working methodology that seeks to create an order to support the company’s growth without losing control of the existing risk in the environment where it operates.
The important thing is to define a capital structure consistent with the cash cycle, control leverage with simple rules, and govern day-to-day operations with a control dashboard that connects operations, prices, and treasury. The idea is not to avoid debt, but to borrow better, aligning each source with the specific use that originates it and with the real speed at which the business generates cash.
As a basis for its design, an economic map is created that shows sales, margins by product, fixed and variable cost structure, cash conversion cycle, and seasonality. With this snapshot, permanent capital needs, linked to productive assets and the stable portion of working capital, are separated from cyclical needs, associated with activity peaks, seasonal purchases, or temporary projects. This avoids the common mistake of financing long-life assets with short-term credit lines or, conversely, immobilizing working capital with rigid amortization loans.
A practical rule to initiate this structure is that assets with a useful life exceeding three years should be financed with long-term resources. This long term includes equity, medium and long-term loans, leasing, renting, and, where applicable, public-private financing. Fluctuating working capital should be supported by short-term, flexible, and revolving instruments. In this way, the company smooths debt service and reduces the risk of cash tensions when the business has not yet converted sales into collections.
To complete the architecture, it will be complemented with a debt schedule that avoids accumulating maturities in a very short period and with a hierarchy of sources that minimizes their costs and rigidity. The cheapest debt is not always the best if it reduces flexibility. Credit lines are renewed with the criterion of not converting them into continuous financing of fixed assets. Leasing and renting operations must be aligned with the economic life of the asset so that its accounting and financial amortization progress in a coordinated manner. Equity, own or from partners, must cover development risk and serve as a cushion against low-probability, high-impact events.
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