3. EFFECTIVENESS OF THE CASH POOLING The first possible viewpoint is a viewpoint according to the type of company where the cash pooling system is to be used. The first case is use within the scope of one company with a number of inpidual organizational units (plants), where pooling enables the effective management of financial means even during a requirement for the decentralisation of the organisational units. The second alternative is use within the scope of a holding company with independent accounting units – companies in the group. Here, pooling makes the management of finances more effective from the accounting and administrative aspect from the beginning of separated units. The second viewpoint of the use of pooling is according to the initial purpose. From this aspect, it is possible to pide pooling into pooling for associating cash and into pooling for making financing more effective. The first use accents the improvement of the possibility of investing free financial means during a greater volume of these. The second alternative is the possibility of use of the free resources of one unit for the financing of other units without bank loan costs. Which independent companies actually use cash pooling? They are any company which requires that financial management of organizational units is kept separate and fully transparent. They are also companies that base their assessment on the realized cash flow of organizational units. An example would be the FMCG companies, industrial companies within inpidual plants or financial institutions with regional branches such as insurance companies for instance. Each such company must determine the degree of independence of its organizational units. Independence can be complete within the scope of an annual plan in the sphere of income and expenses, or independence is limited in the sphere of expenses by a certain annual budget and in the sphere of income by the task of achieving the planned cash flow (the most usual case).
4. POOLING STRUCTURES The used type of pooling structure is determined according to this differentiation. Within the scope of one company and one country, the most effective system is zero balancing because it performs the complete centralization of financial means. If the inpidual branches fulfil simply the income part of the budget and the expenses are centralised, it is suitable to perform transfers in only one direction. Single-direction zero balancing is the system most used. With regard to the overdraft limit in this arrangement, this is not allocated on the level of inpidual accounts (organizational units) and usually serves only on the master account level for covering cash flow deviations. If the branches are not an income but a cost centre, it is suitable to enable either drawing of an overdraft limit from their accounts or to subsidise them by a certain sum each day. If costs are approximately the same every day, it is appropriate to use dual-directional pooling with the retroactive transfer of the defined amount of the daily budget. This arrangement can also be used during the management of branches governing income and expenses if the expenses fulfil the requirement of stability. In this arrangement, we do not allocate an overdraft limit on the level of the inpidual account. The management of branches issues from the determined daily budget. The overdraft limit on the main account serves for the purpose of the centre and for the cases of non-coverage of expenses of a branch by the income from elsewhere. In cases of cost branches, which have variable expenses during a measure of days, but stable expenses within the scope of the month, it is possible to select from several various arrangements. One alternative is to transfer the whole volume of the monthly budget to a secondary account and monitor the volume of submitted payment orders in the centre (must be monitored by the company information centre). The second alternative is to enable the inpidual account to draw an overdraft of up to the sum of the monthly budget. Again, the company information system must monitor either the volume of submitted payment orders (the more complicated alternative) or the volume of transfers from the top account to the secondary account. This alternative is also offered by some banks within the scope of real pooling. Their system enables automatic monitoring of the cumulative volume of transfers between the top and inpidual account and if the overall cumulative limit for drawing is exceeded, it does not allow drawing of an additional overdraft. If the branch expenses are various even from month to month, it is possible to resolve this problem by regular modifications to the sum of the overdraft limit month by month. In these cases, the overdraft limit of the main account is delegated to inpidual accounts and its sum does not have to exceed the sum of limits of inpidual accounts. It is appropriate to modify the settings of the inpidual overdraft limits according to the updating of the annual plan of expenses. In the event that the organizational unit governs income and expenses, a combination of the mentioned approaches is necessary.