The effects of financial management practices to the growth of small and medium enterprises in Zambales, Philippines

This study is to determine the effect of financial management practices to the growth of SMEs. The respondents are 50 SMEs and selected through convenience random sampling. Survey questionnaire was used in data gathering. The findings show that majority of the respondents were females with mean age of 36.9 years old, bachelor degree holder with mean years in business of 8.78 years. The respondents are highly practicing the working capital management practices but they moderately practicing the capital structure and investment decision practices. The respondents strongly agree on the growth of SMEs’ sales volume but only agree on the growth of profit and expansion. There is a significant difference on the working capital management practices according to the respondent’s highest educational attainment, capital structure practices according to the type of business, and investment decision practices according to the highest educational attainment and nature of business. Therefore, it is highly recommended that, SMEs may continually practice the management of their working capital. SMEs should outweigh the cost-benefit relationship in structuring their capital sources. SMEs should strengthen the practice of their investment decisions through capital budgeting and fund allocation into long-term assets. SMEs may do expansion through new products/services offering and to cover wide range of customers. Lastly, SMEs should practice continually the financial management to attain business’ success.