Q. What do you meant by Overtrading?

When a company is trading large volumes of sales very quickly, it may also be generating large amounts of credit sales and consequently large volume of trade receivables. It would also be purchasing large amounts of inventories on credit to maintain production at the same rate as sales and so have large volumes of trade payables. This will extend working capital cycle which will have an adverse effect on cash flow. If company doesn't have enough working capital, it will find it difficult to continue as there would be insufficient funds to meet all costs as they fall due.

Overtrading takes place when a company has inadequate finance for working capital to support its level of trading. Company is growing rapidly and is trying to take on more business that its financial resources permit hence it is "under-capitalised". Overtrading usually occurs in businesses which have just started to trade and where they may have suddenly begun to experience rapid sales growth. In this circumstances it is quite easy to place high importance on sales growth while neglecting to manage the working capital.