TEA by CLR Technologies

Anything is possible on the balance sheet

Know what every day of inventory costs you. In dollars.

TEA (Techno-Economic Analysis) is CLR Technologies' carrying-cost model for companies that hold inventory, sell on credit or borrow to run. It turns the days your cash spends in inventory, receivables and payables into the working capital it locks up, what that capital costs at today's lending rates, and the net margin that is actually left.

Talk to CLR about your numbers See how the math works

Built on public FRED, BEA, BLS and Census data. Every formula is on this page.

Example result: a 75-day cash conversion cycle costs $46,233 a year and leaves a 4.69% true net margin $2M company, 11.25% lending rate Cash cycle 75 days 60 + 45 - 30 Capital locked up $410,959 working capital Carrying cost $46,233 a year, 2.31% True net margin 4.69% 7% on paper

What TEA measures

Every company that buys before it sells has a cash conversion cycle (CCC): the days between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. It is inventory days plus receivable days, minus the days you take to pay suppliers. For the whole of that cycle, cash sits in the business instead of the bank, and most of it is financed with borrowed money.

That interest is a carrying cost. It rarely appears as its own line on a profit and loss statement, so a company can look healthy on gross margin while rising rates or a longer inventory buffer quietly take its profit. TEA puts a number on it.

  • A carrying-cost calculator

    Enter revenue, gross margin, operating costs, lending rate and your inventory, receivable and payable days. Industry presets give typical starting values.

  • Rate sensitivity

    A heatmap of true net margin across lending rates and cycle lengths shows how far a Federal Reserve rate change moves your profit, before it happens.

  • Tariff shock

    Add the extra inventory days a company holds against trade and tariff uncertainty, and see what that buffer costs each year.

  • Break-even and viability

    The longest cash cycle your margins can carry before profit reaches zero, and a viability score from 0 (insolvent) to 100 (strong).

  • Sector and state benchmarks

    Firm counts, employment and output by industry and for all 50 states, to compare a company with its sector and its region.

  • Decades of rate history

    The federal funds rate since 1954, commercial and industrial loans since 1947, and sector output from 1997, straight from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

How the math works

Five lines, no black box. Each step uses the numbers from the one before it.

Inventory, receivable and payable days give the cash cycle, which sets working capital, which at the lending rate becomes the carrying cost that comes out of net margin Cycle days Inventory + receivables - payables (+ tariff days) Working capital Revenue x cycle / 365 Carrying cost Working capital x lending rate True net Margin - opex - carrying cost
Swipe sideways to see the full diagram.
CCC             = DIO + DSO - DPO + tariff days
Working capital = revenue x CCC / 365
Carrying cost   = working capital x rate
True net        = margin - opex - carrying %
Break-even CCC  = (margin - opex) / rate x 365

Worked example

A $2M company with a 15% gross margin, 8% operating costs and an 11.25% lending rate, holding 60 days of inventory, waiting 45 days to be paid and paying suppliers in 30.

Cash cycle
75 days
Working capital
$410,959
Carrying cost
$46,233 a year
True net margin
4.69%, not 7%
Break-even cycle
227 days
Add 30 tariff days
+$18,493 a year

DIO: days inventory outstanding. DSO: days sales outstanding, how long customers take to pay. DPO: days payable outstanding, how long you take to pay suppliers. Margin is gross margin; rate is your lending rate.

Built on public data

TEA does not ask you to trust a proprietary index. Rate history comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED): the effective federal funds rate and commercial and industrial loans outstanding. Sector output comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and firm counts from the Census Bureau's Statistics of US Businesses (SUSB).

Smaller companies carry most of this risk. They borrow at higher rates than large firms, hold longer buffers against supply and tariff shocks, and have the least room in their margins to absorb either.

1954
first month of federal funds rate history in TEA
1947
first month of commercial and industrial loan data
50
states with firm and employment benchmarks

Why CLR built it

CLR Technologies builds electrocatalytic refining: using electrical current, rather than carbon-intensive heat, to produce cleaner fuels, low-GWP (Global Warming Potential) refrigerants and chemical commodities. A new process has to work on the balance sheet as well as in the reactor, so techno-economic analysis is part of how CLR decides what to build.

TEA applies the same discipline to companies that already exist: what the time between buying and getting paid really costs, and how much room is left before a rate change or a longer buffer turns profit into loss.

Run TEA on your company

Send us your revenue, margins and cycle days, and we will show you your carrying cost, your break-even cycle and how a rate change or a tariff buffer would move them.

Contact CLR Technologies