First a few thanks and apologies to:
Associates at The Learning Luminarium – many thanks for their sensible advice :-)(remember although I am ‘up’ on assessment criteria and academic content, their expertise is actually helping students on a day to day basis face-to-face with putting their RAPs together from ‘scratch’ so can empathise with many of the actual problems you experience along your RAP journey, some of which I am not aware of). Oh and many thanks for reiterating how pointless some ratios are for some companies and how ratios should be appropriate for the particular company
@Zaheen – sorry I seem to have ignored your query – I think TLL have covered some of this indirectly. It is fine to ‘repeat’ reasons if they affect more than one area of operations – in fact it is good that you are recognising that ratios are not to be viewed in isolation but are inter-related as it shows that you are opening your eyes to the bigger picture 🙂 (Do not forget though that you will need to back up your statements with references!)
With receiveable/payables you will need to look at the trends – are they smooth or do they fluctuate? To a point this is one area where most of the explanations tend to be ‘textbook’ However with liquidity it may be relevant to look at changes in the balance of the cash components – short term-investments, cash balances etc. (My general advice is not to worry too unduly about the ‘internal’ ratios but focus on the company’s ratios that are important to the ‘Market’). You are unlikely be failed if your payables/receivables comments are a bit ‘routine explanations’ but the rest of your analysis is good, but you could be if you gloss over important areas like GP and the investor ratios or resort to statements of the obvious for these particular sections….
I think I have covered your query regarding Conclusions above (see the post September 20, 2014 at 7:23 pm)
@pallirvai – just a little to add about ‘self-relection’ – in the RAP it relates to coming up with Limitations as the TLL have mentioned above (and possibly ethical considerations too). You do NOT discuss this from a personal point of view in the RAP, you just briefly state anything inherent in the data itself that may have affected your info gathering or the analysis of it – so do not waste words on saying things like the word count restricted you. However in Q2 of the SLS you are expected to reflect on what may have impeded you from a personal point of view and you may mention the word count restraint there 🙂 .