ASSETS AND CAPITAL IN SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED WINERIES IN SLOVAKIA *

. Small and medium-sized companies make up approximately 99.9 % of the total number of all companies in Slovakia. Developing these companies is an essential prerequisite for significant economic growth in our country. The paper's primary goal is to analyse the development of assets and capital of small and medium-sized companies in viticulture in Slovakia. The monitored period was 2013-2021


Introduction and review of literature
Viniculture and viticulture belong to the traditional manufacturing industries in Slovakia.Slovakia has a long tradition of growing vines and wine production for over three thousand years (Némethová, 2013).Natural settings limit the distribution of vineyards predominantly to its southern parts, mainly to the lowlands and foothills of the Carpathians.In general, the area of vineyards decreased at the national level (Slámová & Belčáková, 2020).It can be stated that the quality of Slovak wine is at a high level, but the competitiveness of the sector in the EU market has a negative trend.In choosing the appropriate measures to improve this situation, we consider the critical management decisions of the Slovak wine industry enterprises (Rogovská, 2018).In the last 20 years, wine consumption has risen slightly.However, wine production is insufficient for the domestic market, and wine must be imported from abroad (Janšto et al., 2018).Wine exports have been concentrated in a few markets within the EU single market.Grape farmers in these countries must find ways to improve yield per hectare.
Similarly, export promotion should be encouraged and diversified beyond the EU markets to reduce external demand volatility or shocks (Verter & Hasíková, 2019).Wine character differs from continent to continent, country to country, region to region, vineyard to vineyard, and, of course, from producer to producer.These differences are affected by countless variables inherited from natural conditions, processing techniques, cultivar selection, tradition and human factors, which are difficult to define (Karlík et al., 2018;Aquilera et al., 2022).
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are essential contributors to boosting the world's economies (Chin, Zakaria & Keong, 2021;Moya & Rubio, 2020).EU integration brought expressive economic development to Slovakia.The development of SMEs in Slovakia is vital for the transition of the Slovak economy to the next level (Ahmadov, 2020).Improving business conditions and SME development are signs of a country's macroeconomic stability.The issue of identifying and removing barriers to the development of firms in the SME segment is a priority in all countries with developed economies, and its importance is currently increasing (Belas et al., 2020).
The accounting task is to provide information about a company's financial situation and its profit or loss for a given period.From the accounting records, it can also be seen how successful the company management is in ensuring the financial management of the entity, whether it is achieving a reasonable return on investment, whether the entity can repay its debts continuously and whether the long-term stability of the entity is ensured (Stárová & Čermáková, 2010).Suppose a company wants to achieve the set goals.In that case, it is crucial not only to have correct and precise corporate objectives and enough financial resources but it is vital to have enough assets (Martinovičová, Konečný & Vavřina, 2019).
The assets of a company can be defined in terms of the Act on Accounting, but also in terms of the Commercial Code.Act No 431/2002 Coll. on Accounting defines assets as those assets of an entity that are the result of past events, are almost certain to increase the entity's economic benefits in the future and can be reliably measured in accordance with Sections 24 to 28; they are recognised in the financial statements in the Balance Sheet or in the statement of assets and liabilities.Act No 513/1991 Coll., the Commercial Code, defines business assets as the aggregate of assets (assets, receivables and other rights and other values that are measurable in monetary terms) belonging to an entrepreneur and used or intended to be used in the entrepreneur's business.The composition of assets, their structure or quantity, always depends on the size of the enterprise and the nature of the enterprise's business activity (Majdúchová et al., 2020).The size of a company's assets is also influenced by its current goals, i.e., whether it wants to expand or focus on its survival (Sivák et al., 2019).
Assets can be classified from several perspectives (Mrkosová, 2020).In terms of the way the asset operates in the entity, i.e., its relationship to the operating cycle, i.e., the purpose of acquiring the asset, it is divided into: • non-current assets • and current assets.In terms of time, the assets are divided into: • long-term asset, • current assets.
The cut-off point for the breakdown of assets into non-current and current assets is 1 year.In terms of liquidity, assets are classified according to the degree of liquidity, from the most liquid to the least liquid or vice versa.The liquidity of an asset is its ability to be converted into cash or cash equivalents.It is determined by the time required for this conversion and the costs associated with it (Šlosárová & Blahušiaková, 2020).
Non-current assets include: • intangible fixed assets, the valuation is higher than EUR 2,400 (Krištofík et al., 2009), resulting from research, development, and introduction of new procedures.These are capitalised development costs, software, patents, licenses, copyrights, import quotas, trademarks, marketing rights, etc. (Bohušová & Svoboda, 2010), • tangible fixed assets whose valuation is higher than EUR 1,700.It includes land, buildings, flats, and nonresidential premises, works of art and collections, objects made of precious metals, separate movable items and sets of movable items, cultivation units of permanent crops with a fertility period of more than 3 years, basic herd and draft animals, openings of new quarries, (Juhászová et al., 2021), • non-current financial assets generally consist of securities and shares, long-term loans, works of art, collections, precious metal objects and land acquired by the entity to hold available funds (Farkaš, 2020).
Current assets are defined as cash and tangible assets that can be expected to be converted into cash within one year (Růčková, 2019).Included are the following: • inventories, • short-term financial assets, • short-term receivables.Inventories are classified according to the method of acquisition into (Cenigova, 2020): • purchased supplies -materials, goods, • stocks of own production -work in progress, semi-finished products of own production, products, animals.
According to Mateášová et al. (2018), short-term financial assets consist of marketable securities, securities held to maturity (one year or less), bank accounts, cash, and valuables.It also explains that a short-term receivable has a one-year or less maturity.Current assets are mainly used to settle liabilities.They are constantly in motion; one form passes into another.The money is used to buy materials, in the production process from it to create finished products; after delivery to customers, receivables arise, and after their payment, we have money again).Current assets turnover is in the order of days (in the store) to weeks (in production).The faster current assets turn under the same conditions, the greater the profit.Therefore, the speed of its turnover is an important indicator of the use of current assets.Current assets represent the working capital of the company.Working capital consists of inventories, receivables and financial assets.The main problem in managing working capital is to determine the optimal level of investment in current assets and to find ways to finance it properly (Šeligová & Koštuříková, 2022).A correct and accurate classification of assets will provide users with good information about the current solvency of the company, its future development, as well as whether the overall financing of the company is stable and will be sufficiently secured in the future (Dvořáková, 2022).The value of the asset must take into account the acquisition costs of the asset concerned, its degree of depreciation, and the development of market prices of the relevant components of the asset from the time of their acquisition to the time of their valuation (Adámiková & Čorejová).
The financial management of a company is an important part of the company's management.Research shows that the main factors in business failure include lack of financial planning, limited access to capital, lack of capital, unplanned growth, inaccurate strategic and financial forecasts, excessive fixed asset investment and lack of capital management (Huo, 2023).Capital structure is measured using three alternative ratios: total debt, long-term debt, and short-term debt, as the impact of the determinants can depend on debt maturity (Lisboa, 2017).Assets acquired by a company are funded by debt or equity capital.Finding a suitable capital structure is essential for any firm.SMEs are more prone to go bankrupt by not considering the vitality of optimal capital structure (Rane, 2022).Capital structure decisions are crucial for any business.Still, they have a special meaning for SMEs because their strategic miscalculations can lead to a crisis or even bankruptcy much faster due to the limited scope of their activities (Panova, 2020;Saarani & Shahadan, 2013).Asset structure, company size, liquidity, profitability, and sales growth affect the capital structure.Errors in determining the capital structure can affect a company's sustainable development, increasing the company's financial risk (Fadhillah, 2022).Along with the standard factors of the company, analysed by Kokeyeva and Amangeldinovna Adambekova (2019), the impact of the company's industry affiliation on its capital structure.

Material and methodology
In the paper, we collected data from 107 small and medium-sized wineries.We drew the data from the Slovak Register of Financial Statements.We analysed the period of years 2013 -2021.To evaluate the development, we used the calculation of the index (as the share of the last year and first year), the calculation of the change (as the difference between the last year and the first year) and the calculation of the average value for the analysed period.We used the forecast for the next three years to predict the indicators' development.We calculated the direction of the regression line fitted by the points in the areas for the dependent and independent variable using the SLOPE function.It is the vertical distance divided by the horizontal distance between two points.We used the INTERCEPT function to coordinate the point that intersects the y axis for x = 0.This is a point that is determined by fitting the regression line with known values from point x and y.

Results and discussion
Small and medium-sized companies, not only in the wine sector, but in each sector of the national economy, face different challenges to be competitive and gain a foothold in the market.They have irreplaceable importance for the economy of developed countries.The same opinion is shared by Hassan et al. (2021), Vravec (2017), Gunawan et al. (2023), Civelek (2023).
Every company should have some type of assets or appropriate sources (debt, equity).Double-entry bookkeeping aims to provide users with an overview of the state and movement of assets and their sources, profit or loss and changes in the entity's financial situation.Total Assets consist of three basic indicators: non-current assets, current assets, and accruals on the asset side.In Table 1, we focused on assessing the asset's development in wineries for 2013 -2021 and its basic components.In Table 2, we focused on evaluating the development over the whole period with a forecast of these indicators.As can be seen, the value of assets grew year-on-year until 2019, when assets decreased by k€ 60, which caused a decrease in all three indicators (non-current assets, current assets, and accruals).Subsequently, from that year, the value of assets grew.
During the analysed period, the assets of wineries increased by 30.4 % respectively k€ 716 and were at an average level of 2,775.Non-current and current assets showed the same trend; they decreased in 2019.Non-current assets grew by 29.1 % and current assets by 32.1 %.Every year, non-current assets (average value k€ 1,597) outweigh current assets (average value k€ 1,172) in wineries.Accruals on the assets side showed a fluctuating tendency over the analysed years, but comparing years 2013 and 2021, they increased by k€ 2 51 %.The accruals of wineries consisted mainly of prepaid short-term expenses.According to our calculations, the next three years (2022 -2024) are expected to increase all four indicators (total assets, non-current assets, current assets, and accruals).Non-current assets consist of three assets: non-current intangible assets, non-current tangible assets, and noncurrent financial assets.Their development over 2013 -2021 is presented in Table 3, and the development assessment with forecast is in Table 4. Non-current assets have a company for more than one year.Non-current assets showed an increase of k€ 400 in 2021 compared to 2013.The only year non-current assets decreased by k€ 7 was 2019 compared to the previous year.This decrease was due to non-current tangible and non-current intangible assets.Non-current assets have the highest share (96 %), and the non-current tangible asset has an average value of k€ 1,543.In non-current tangible assets, items such as land, buildings, individual movable assets and sets of movable assets, perennial crops, and value adjustment to acquired assets are the most represented.Non-current tangible assets increased by 34.3 % respectively k€ 441 over the whole period.Non-current intangible assets had the lowest values of individual non-current assets in wineries.Its average value was k€ 2. The highest value of non-current intangible assets was recorded at the beginning of the analysed period k€ 11.Since this year, it has shown a fluctuating trend.Compared to 2021 and 2013, non-current intangible assets decreased by k€ 10.Wineries do not report this type of asset if it occurs in the form of software or other noncurrent intangible assets.Non-current financial assets reached the highest value in 2013 at k€ 79 and subsequently decreased by k€ 31 € until 2021.The non-current financial assets of wineries consisted mainly of share securities and other long-term securities and shares, and loans to the entity.From the point of view of forecasting the indicator's development of non-current assets, only non-current tangible assets show an increase.Current assets and development of its items are shown in Table 5, and an evaluation of the development, including prognosis, is shown in Table 6.Current assets are assets of a short-term nature; they serve the current operation of the company.Current assets showed an increasing trend except 2019, when they decreased compared to 2018 by about k€ 48.The decrease in inventories, receivables, and short-term financial assets caused this decrease.The current assets of wineries increased about k€ 313 and reached an average value of k€ 1,172.From the point of view of the current assets, inventories and short-term receivables prevail.
Inventories increased in 2021 in comparison with 2013 about 34.6%.Its average value for the following period was at the level of k€ 631.Inventories are created mainly by raw materials, work-in-progress, semi-finished goods, finished goods, and merchandise.Short-term receivables exceeded long-term receivables every year.Short-term receivables were, on average k€ 371 for the analysed years, and compared to the last and the first monitored year, they increased by k€ 3.This indicator mainly consisted of trade receivables, other receivables, and social insurance receivables.Shortterm financial assets from individual items of current assets reached the lowest values.Its increase was recorded up to 2021 compared to 2013 by k€ 5. Financial accounts comprised cash on hand, and bank accounts reached an average value of k€ 140; by 2021, compared to 2013, their value had almost doubled.In the next three years, we expect an increase in current assets and inventories, long-term receivables, short-term financial assets, and financial accounts.Growth is one of the factors influencing a company's ability to obtain financial sources.Many SMEs still need help finding out finances for their business.Wineries can use equity and debt sources to finance their activities.Total equity and liabilities consist of equity, liabilities, and accruals.Since there is a balance between assets and total equity and liabilities, the development is the same.So, the only decrease was recorded in 2019, which was caused by liabilities and accruals.The equity value shows an increasing trend from year to year.Overall, the value of equity increased by 32.9%.The average value of equity reached k€ 1,238.Liabilities showed an increasing trend until 2018 and subsequently decreased by k€ 75 between 2019 and 2018; from 2020 they increased annually.Comparing the years 2021 and 2013 liabilities show an increase of 23.3 %.The average value of winery liabilities was k€ 1,289.Accruals grew yearly, but a year-on-year decrease was recorded in 2018, 2019 and 2021.Accruals increased by k€ 108.These indicators in wineries mainly consisted of short-term and long-term deferred income.Based on the indicators forecast, the increase was quantified for all indicators listed in Table 7 in the next three years.Equity is a source which an entrepreneur invests in the business.Equity is more expensive than debt.In the balance sheet, equity consists of the following indicators: share capital, share premium, other capital funds, legal reserve funds, other funds created from profit, differences from revaluation, net profit/loss of previous years and net profit/loss for the accounting period after tax.The equity value grew every year.In total, equity increased by k€ 343.The highest share of the equity development had other capital funds, their average value for the monitored period was k€ 511 i.e., 41%.The share capital fluctuated, but in 2021, compared to 2013, its increase was recorded by 17.4% or by k€ 57.Except for one winery, wineries did not have a share premium; its value increased by approximately twofold in 2021.
Differences from revaluation showed a negative value, which deepened to a double negative value in 2021.Wineries had the profit of previous years, which increased by k€ 163.Its average value was k€ 253 during the analysed years.From the point of view of the profit for the accounting period after tax, it had from 2018 required an increasing trend.Based on this indicator, wineries could be considered as profitable.Liabilities consist of long-term and short-term resources.Long-term sources include long-term liabilities, longterm bank loans and long-term reserves.Short-term resources consist of short-term liabilities, reserves, current bank loans, and short-term-financial assistance.Liabilities and development of their items are shown in Table 11, and an evaluation of the development, including the prognosis of development, is shown in Table 12.The drop in liabilities in 2019 was caused by a decrease in all liability items except long-term liabilities.Their value has grown every year since 2016.In total, long-term liabilities increased by 56.6%.Trade liabilities, other long-term liabilities and liabilities from the social fund had the largest share of the long-term liabilities.Longterm reserves were zero in most companies, but approximately three companies reported their value annually.Therefore, long-term reserve value is at the lowest level of all items forming liabilities.
On the contrary, wineries used short-term reserves, whether legal or other reserves.Their value increased by 18.5% until 2021.Wineries used long-term bank loans and current bank loans to finance their needs.The value of bank loans increased in 2021 compared to 2013.The drawing of long-term bank loans exceeded the drawing of current bank loans in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.The highest item of liabilities are short-term liabilities, a value of more than k€ 500 annually.Short-term liabilities decreased by k€ 63 until 2021.Their average value was k€ 555.The short-term liabilities of wineries consisted mainly of trade liabilities, other liabilities, tax liabilities and subsidies, liabilities to employees and liabilities from social insurance.Short-term financial assistance increased by k€ 5; their average value was at k€ 53.From the point of view of the forecast for 2022 -2024, an increase in all liabilities indicators is expected, except for long-term reserves, short-term liabilities, and short-term financial assistance.

Conclusions
Grape growing is a tradition not only in Slovakia but also one of the world's most crucial economic fruit crops (Aguilera et al., 2022).Viticulture has been facing various challenges in recent years that must be addressed.Accounting provides information on the use and appreciation of assets, the profitability of business inputs, the financial situation and economic stability.Accounting is required to provide information on the business activities undertaken and their results in the past, as well as on the expected future results (Baštincová, 2016).One financial statement of companies accounting in double-entry bookkeeping is the balance sheet, in which assets, equity and liabilities and their components are recorded.In the analysed wineries, the value of the assets grew every year except 2019.This year, a decrease was caused by basic asset indicators (non-current assets, current assets, and accruals).In companies, non-current assets prevail over current assets.In financing sources, in 2019, the decrease in equity and liabilities caused liabilities and accruals.
This research paper provides insight into fundamental economic indicators such as assets and capital and the structure of a selected group of wineries in Slovakia.The authors' research in Slovakia focuses on vine cultivation, its harvesting, processing, wine production and the wine market.In Slovakia, no one from the field of science and research is devoted to the financial and economic analysis of wineries in scientific papers.We want to continue our research in the future and bring insight into the financial management of this group of companies.

Table 1 .
Development of Total assets and its items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€

Table 2 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of assets indicators

Table 3 .
Development of non-current assets and their items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€

Table 4 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of non-current assets indicators

Table 5 .
Development of current assets and their items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€

Table 6 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of current assets indicators

Table 7 .
Development of total equity and liabilities and their items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€ Authorsown processing and calculation, Financial statements of wineries

Table 8 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of total equity and liabilities indicators

Table 9 .
Development of equity and its items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€

Table 10 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of equity indicators

Table 11 .
Development of liabilities and their items in the period of years 2013 -2021 in k€

Table 12 .
Evaluation of development and forecast of liabilities indicators