Practice 30 Bookkeeper interview questions covering reconciliation, accuracy, and accounting software proficiency.
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Brian Schuchart is a CPA and Senior Finance Business Partner. His professional experience includes senior management roles with NBC Sports, Virtual Health, and the Children's Hospital of Philadephia.
This question gauges whether you understand metrics and can use them to catch trends in the business. Days Payable Outstanding is a metric that measures the health of accounts payable. A high or growing metric indicates that you can pay your vendors on increasingly favorable terms, which is beneficial to cash flow management.

Brian Schuchart is a CPA and Senior Finance Business Partner. His professional experience includes senior management roles with NBC Sports, Virtual Health, and the Children's Hospital of Philadephia.
"Days Payable Outstanding is an important metric that measures the health of accounts payable. The metric indicates how many days of expenses are hung up in accounts payable at any given time. A low number of days indicates that the company is paying their bills quickly. A growing number of days indicates that the company is taking advantage of favorable vendor terms, which helps with cash flow management. As long as bills are not overdue, it is a sound strategy to have longer payment terms with vendors."

I am a CPA with over 12 years of bookkeeping experience.
Days payable outstanding (DPO) computes the average number of days a company needs to pay its bills and obligations.
Companies that have a high DPO can delay making payments and use the available cash for short-term investments as well as to increase their working capital and free cash flow. However, higher values of DPO, though desirable, may not always be a positive for the business as it may signal a cash shortfall and inability to pay.

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Written by Brian Schuchart
30 Questions & Answers • Bookkeeper

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By Brian