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Unsecured Debt Ratio

Source: R/get-debt-unsecured-ratio.R
get_debt_unsecured_ratio.Rd

Unsecured notes and loans payable as a share of total liabilities.

Formula:

debt_unsecured = unsecured_notes_loans / total_liabilities

Definitional Range

Bounded [0, 1]. Most nonprofits carry no unsecured notes, so the distribution is highly concentrated at zero with a long right tail.

Benchmarks and rules of thumb

  • No established benchmark. Presence of unsecured debt is not inherently negative – many healthy nonprofits use lines of credit for cash flow management – but a large and growing ratio warrants scrutiny.

  • Trend analysis is more informative than a single year's value.

Calculated For: 990 filers only.

Usage

get_debt_unsecured_ratio( df,
  unsecured_notes_loans     = "F9_10_LIAB_NOTE_UNSEC_EOY",
  total_liabilities         = "F9_10_LIAB_TOT_EOY",
  winsorize  = 0.98 ,
  range     = "zo",
  sanitize   = TRUE,
  summarize  = FALSE )

Arguments

df

A data.frame containing the fields required for computing the metric.

unsecured_notes_loans

Unsecured notes and loans payable, EOY.

total_liabilities

Total liabilities, EOY.

winsorize

Winsorization proportion between 0 and 1 (default 0.98).

range

Character string specifying the theoretical range of the ratio, used to set winsorization bounds. Default "zo". Options: "np" (negative to positive), "zp" (zero to positive), "zo" (zero to one), "nz" (negative to zero), or a custom "lo;hi" pair (e.g. "0;10").

sanitize

Logical (default TRUE). If TRUE, imputes zero for NA financial fields before computing, respecting form scope.

summarize

Logical (default FALSE). If TRUE, prints summary statistics and density plots for all four output columns.

Value

The original data.frame with four columns appended: debt_unsecured, debt_unsecured_w, debt_unsecured_z, debt_unsecured_p.

Details

Primary uses and key insights

The unsecured debt ratio measures what share of total liabilities consists of unsecured notes and loans payable (Part X line 24B), typically including lines of credit and unsecured bank loans. Used alongside get_debt_secured_ratio(), it provides a decomposition of the liability structure.

Formula variations and their sources

Unsecured notes and loans payable (Part X line 24B) / total liabilities (line 26B). A direct read from two 990 balance sheet fields.

Canonical citations

  • Frumkin, P. & Keating, E.K. (2001). The price of doing good. Policy and Society, 20(4), 94-112.

Variables used:

  • F9_10_LIAB_NOTE_UNSEC_EOY: Unsecured notes and loans payable, EOY (unsecured_notes_loans)

  • F9_10_LIAB_TOT_EOY: Total liabilities, EOY (total_liabilities)

Examples

library( fiscal )
data( dat10k )
d <- get_debt_unsecured_ratio( df = dat10k )
#>    :: Total liabilities equal to zero :: 3,156 case(s) replaced with NaN
head( d[ , c( "debt_unsecured", "debt_unsecured_w", "debt_unsecured_z", "debt_unsecured_p" ) ] )
#>   debt_unsecured debt_unsecured_w debt_unsecured_z debt_unsecured_p
#> 1             NA               NA               NA               NA
#> 2            NaN              NaN              NaN               NA
#> 3             NA               NA               NA               NA
#> 4              0                0        -1.977498                1
#> 5             NA               NA               NA               NA
#> 6              0                0        -1.977498                1