Financial Terms / burn rate

Understanding Burn Rate & Cash Expenditure

Burn Rate is a measure of how quickly a company spends its cash reserves, and its rate of cash spending per month affects its overall financial runway.

Formula

Burn Rate = Initial Cash - Final Cash

How do I calculate the burn rate?

It is important to understand how to calculate burn rate in order to make informed decisions about a company's financial health. Burn rate is calculated by subtracting the company's total cash at the end of a given period from total cash at the beginning of the same period, and dividing the difference by the number of months in that period. This figure can be expressed as either a dollar amount or a percentage. For example, if a company had $100,000 in cash at the beginning of a 3-month period, and $90,000 in cash at the end of the period, its burn rate would be $10,000/3 months or 10%. Burn rate is an important metric when it comes to forecasting and budgeting, and can be easily calculated using tools like Sourcetable.

What is the burn rate?

The burn rate is the speed at which an unprofitable company burns its cash reserves. It measures the rate at which a new company is spending its venture capital to finance its overhead, and is often a consideration for young life sciences or technology companies without profits.

How is the burn rate expressed?

The burn rate is usually expressed in terms of cash spent per month.

How is the burn rate used?

The burn rate is used by startup companies and investors to track the amount of cash a company spends each month before it begins generating its own income. It is also used as a measure of a company's financial runway.

How does the burn rate affect a company's financial runway?

A company's burn rate affects its financial runway in that the higher the burn rate, the shorter the company's financial runway will be. For example, if a company has a burn rate of $50,000 per month, it will only have 12 months of financial runway if it has $600,000 in cash reserves.

Key Points

How do I calculate burn rate?
Burn Rate = Initial Cash - Final Cash
Burn Rate
The burn rate is the speed at which an unprofitable company uses its cash reserves. It measures negative cash flow and is typically used by startup companies without profits or revenue.
Venture Capital
The burn rate is the rate at which a new company is spending its venture capital to finance its overhead. This rate is used to track how fast a company is spending its capital.
Runway
The burn rate is used to measure a company's runway, which is its ability to sustain operations until it becomes profitable. The company's burn rate affects its financial runway.

Make Better Decisions
With Data

Analyze data, automate reports and create live dashboards
for all your business applications, without code. Get unlimited access free for 14 days.