z9999 remarked about the cash flow is not incorporating the way toll. (Currently cash flow also does not incorporate maintenance, but only transport income and powerline income.) However the way tolls can be either positive or negative. Therefore I see two opinions:
- rename cash flow to "tariffs" or "transport earning" or something mathcin and remove powerline money from it
- incorporate the way toll into it
Or are there any other suggestions?
I would incorporate all and rename cash flow to: "Total earnings" or "total revenue"
"Cash flow" should reflect all items that actually change the amount of cash in the player's bank balance, so maintenance and way tolls should be incorporated. As such, it would be a useful and meaningful measure, and different in substance to "operating profit", which is also useful and meaningful in a different way.
In my business I would treat it as follows:
- tolls paid as an operational expense, just like vehicle maintenance, station and track maintenance, cost per mile etc.
- tolls received as an operational income, as are transport income and power line income.
Taken together those values = operational profit (or loss)
Operational profit gives you an idea of how much cash (net) your business is generating that you can invest in new lines etc.
Cash flow would include items not part of operational costs such as fixed assets purchases and disposals, track construction, land levelling etc. Cash flow is tracking the change in bank balance and not in my opinion a very valuable measure. More important is actual cash balance and net worth - as those trigger bankruptcy if both are negative.
This is all clear to me. The operating profits already contains maitenance and so on and certainly also contain the way toll.
The question is, if the toll should be count into proceeds (first point in finance window) or should it only listed separately? (like Powerline income, should it go also to proceeds or should it listed seperately?)
Booking tolls separately does not help at all to find out how effective the toll collection/how expensive tolls are. That is not helpful to a player at all.
well its should be together - cause its would be called Income meaning income from buildings such power lines and etc
It is currently called Proceeds.
The Proceeds are the income from what? Only the vehicles?
Than it could be re-translated to 'vehicles income'.
Because if the Outcome is the Operation Cost and Maintenance why the Income can't be detailed shown too?
That's how it works: (Tell me if I'm wrong)
Income + Costs = Operational Profit
Income = Proceeds + Powerlines + Road Tools
Costs = Operation Cost + Maintenance
Cash Flow = Operational Profit + New Vehicles + Construction Costs
Net Wealth = Account Balance + Assets
Operational Costs is the vehicles cost.
Maintenance is the ways/buildings cost.
Not sure how the Margin is calculated, but I know it's how much profit you're making.
A new suggestion for the Finance Dialog here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8089.msg77312#msg77312).
This is like it is (and has been) for a while. When powerline were the only other source of income, those were added to proceeds. But now, separate categories make imho much more sense.