The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize corporate value while managing the firm's financial risks. The discipline can be divided into long-term and short-term decisions and techniques. Capital investment (or capital budgeting) decisions are long-term choices about which projects receive investment, whether to finance that investment with equity or debt, and when or whether to pay dividends to shareholders. On the other hand, the short-term decisions can be grouped under the heading "Working capital management". This subject deals with the short-term balance of current assets and current liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash, inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers).
