Dell's cash conversion cycle gets one once over, twice.

A marketing finance person at Dell writes in to take issue with Vincent DiCarmine's explanation of "cash conversion cycle" that's quoted here.

The Dell executive writes:

Analyst says : They have a negative 44 days CCC (cash conversion cycle), which means that their sales are converted in hard cash 44 days BEFORE the sale.

I say : They have a negative 44 days CCC, which means that their sales are converted in hard cash 44 days BEFORE Dell needs to pay for purchase invoices to vendors.

WikiPedia says: "It is quite possible for a business to have a negative cash conversion cycle, i.e. receiving payment from customers before it has to pay suppliers."

So: Dell sells products to customers and gets payment upfront. Then Dell has some time to hold on to the cash from customers before it has to pay its bills.

If Dell loses leverage with some key suppliers (such as Intel, which no longer counts itself as an exclusive supplier to Dell) and/or a number of customers (like those who paid money upfront for Dell's XPS 700 systems but had to wait months for delivery), it might be difficult to maintain such a favorable cash conversion cycle in the future.

But right now, Dell maintains one of the more favorable cash conversion cycles in the industry.