BUG to do with cash leakage / incorrect profit

[baz]

I noticed this the other day, and it's very noticeable when you play at 209% difficulty as you start with so little money.

Basically your net profit suggest that you are making profit after all costs are taken into account but your companies cash still reduces as if something else is taking your money. It's almost like there's a tax. I've attached a word doc with the screen shots and additional comments.
This may happen in CAPLAB as a whole regardless of difficulty but it's noticeable when you earn thousands rather than millions. I'll try a new game at easy level to see if I can find this anomaly as well.
Side note due to the bug
The other strange thing is although i'm losing money every month the bank keeps on giving me more money and my credit limit keeps rising. I'm not complaining but this would lead to a RBS style bank collapse in real life. The bank is right to lend me money and increase my limit as my land values and building values have increased but at some stage I will have huge loans and with the interest rate keep on climbing at some stage my company will be in debt by more than it's worth, especially if the land value suddenly crashes. I'll keep testing this as well, to see what does finally happen. The other thing is my stock price isn't affected and keeps climbing but like I said my company is starting to get saddled with huge debt and this feels like RBS. Have I employed a Enron accountant to look after my cash and profit? ;-D
SO basically I can see a Lehman brothers, Royal Bank of Scotland and Enron all in one company.

Anyone can replicate this. Start at 209 % you have 10 million cash and own 50% buy the cheapest apartment let it make profit and then buy another apartment, let that make profit, then you should be able to borrow enough cash to buy another 5 cheap apartments. At this stage I sold one apartment for 15 mill to pay off some of the loan to find that I was still leaking money even though all of my balance sheets and profit bars suggest that i'm in green and making profit. I can upload my original save game with just 1 apartment and another where I own 5 with this issue. I've mentioned in another post about the interest rate, when the interest rates 10% your profits are minor but the cash leakage gets worst. It almost like net profit hasn't taken into account the interest repayments.
I’ve included my settings in the below aswell.

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Above is An Example of income statement, balance sheet , Overview page, Bank report . All captured at the same time. Also used to compare against the other screenshots below.

The next day

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Notice that I lost $15,309 in cash, yes my net profit differs by the same amount but why would that alter my cash? If I bought $1 and sold it for $1.50, then I would have .50 cents profit. If I sold $1 the next day for $1.25 I would make .25 cents. So I would of bought $2 and sold them for $2.75 making a net of 75 cents. Point been on the first day I would have made 50 cents and the second day I would of made 25 cents, so my cash would be $2.75. I would of made 75 cents more than when I started. But this example shows that my net profit reduced and my cash reduced by the same margin. Basically as I sold the dollar for 25 cents less, it reduced my cash by 25 cents. By selling for less dosen’t mean that it would alter my cash. Only if I sold the dollar for 75 cents would I of lost 25 cents from my own cash. Also take note of the profit on the taskbar it shows 3 cents difference.

Next Week

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I made a huge profit in the week, as it does show in my net profit and correctly in my cash. $263,864 was the net profit difference between May 6th Apr 30th. By my calculations $180,575 is the difference between cash of the same dates. Unclear why my net profit now differs from my cash. As it adjusted correctly in the last sample. I’ve not bought, sold or changed anything just simply speedup the time on the game and taken screenshots. Also take note of profit on the taskbar, that suggest that there’s $10,062 positive difference in a week.

3o days later from original screenshot

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A lot can change in a 3 weeks and it has. My net profit is down by $352,108. But it still suggest profit. However my cash has decreased by $352,108 in 3 weeks and by £186,842 over full 30 days from original screenshot. Looking at the profit on task bar that has decreased by $60 in 3 weeks but increased by $9,999 in the 30 days. It appears that my cash decreases by the amount that my net profit decreases but not always

1 year later 29 apr 2021.

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A year on, my cash has decreased by $2,338,032, My profit on the taskbar which is calculated over 365 days says I made a profit of $3,248,830. Is this inflation causing this issue, is it me or is there a bug. I’ve made a screenshot of my corp page as I’m not clear whether the inflation manager is on or off.

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Is the regularly adjust prices based on inflation button turned on or off? Would this make a difference.

Settings

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To summaries
Net profit is the profit after all costs have been deducted, showing you your true profit. With that been the case, my company should have increased in cash. But instead I’ve lost $2,338,032 in cash over 365 days. The profit bar says that’s it’s calculated over 365 days so I should of seen a profit of $3,248,830 over that year in my cash?
Again I have not sold, bought, adjusted anything. My apartments are managed by the fix apartment to rent market rate button and all I have done is sped up the game by a day, week, month and year, So it’s a full game cycle with no reloads or anything. I can upload the save files for day 1 and a year later.
You may well not see this if you play with inflation off or if you play on an easier setting as it’s thousands of pounds over months.

[David]

One observation is that you had a large profit in the "increase in asset" account on your corporate income statement. This is partly due to the inflation which has gone up 2.24 times since the inception in your game, as seen in the Consumer Price Index.

The increases in assets translated into profits for you and both the assets and equity of your company increased as a result. The bank offers loans based on your company's net equity, which did increase over time thanks to the asset appreciation.

So it is possible that your cash dropped (in your game, mainly due to loan interest payments) while your profit increased, as the profits were contributed mainly by asset appreciation, as opposite to operating profits.

By the way, on the Income Statement report, there is a new option for displaying [Last Year] P&L. You can switch to that mode and it may provide you with additional info.

[baz]

Cheers again David, and thanks for your answers. My only concern is that, there isn't a indicator for the cash reduction in the companies cash.
I fully understand your answers and you are right.
But without a real time profit/negative indicator and/or a company cash negative or positive indicator, you'd have to few your balance sheet alot more perhaps daily. I do tend to view these details as much as I can, but on 209% i'd have to watch it to often.
Like you said there is a new option and i'll play the new beta and we can go from there. With the PDF upload hopefully I can capture more and we can discuss it more. I'll also try and creat regular saves so I can use that too.

Would you like a poll on real time profit/negative indicator and/or a company cash negative or positive indicator.
A good Cash indicator could be a matter of colour to make it easier to implement.
The more cash in your companies cash the more density of green it goes. IE the more cash that roles into it, the deeper green it goes untill it goes extreme green and maybe if it's losing money it goes yellow.
So instead of the companies cash just been green or red, you could have very light green to show that it's just making profit on top of the companies cash, and if your making lots of money the companies cash would be a heavy green. Whilst if your losing money it would goto a lighter green and then to a yellow to show that your losing money but not negative in cash. Does this make sense?
Sometimes it's very hard to explain something, that you can see but can't communicate without confusing what it is that your trying to explain. Wait thats confused me now
I look forward to your answers David.

[David]

When you build a building or buy stock, the cash will be reduced. So there are many actions that will increase or decrease cash, not just normal business operations. So the cash will fluctuate greatly and may not tell much about the business operation's efficiency or performance.

I think what you wrote in this topic is a piece of write-up that other Caplab players may find interesting to read. In fact, one of the design goals of Cap Lab is to encourage the users to think more on various economic and business issues, especially those that are subtle and not so apparent ones, which reflect the real world in some degree.

I think it would be a good to start a Wiki strategy guide on Cap Lab, allowing players to post their strategies on various topics including the above. Please check out this topic: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=373 and let me know your thoughts.