Course Details

A comprehensive understanding of the key concepts of business finance for non-financial managers makes their decision making effective and gets them closer to their ultimate goals and objectives. Executives and directors of a company must interact with their crucial finance employees regularly. The interaction helps in understanding what your company’s financial profit and loss accounts are telling about the financial situation of the company and its performance.

Learning finance for non-finance managers develops their ability to manage the daily financial aspects of an organisation effectively. Furthermore, it can help them understand various financial reports in detail and make critical business decisions effectively.

This five days course is designed to help managers understand how the decisions they make will affect the financial performance of their organization. The materials and activities are designed to help you demystify the jargon of finance and to understand and use a range of different financial techniques to improve your abilities as a manager. You will look at the different financial reporting statements and financial measures to improve performance. You will learn about different mechanisms of costing and financial methods such as budgeting to assist in planning and controlling performance.

Throughout this course, you will be asked to relate your studies to your own work context. It will also give you an understanding of the language used by accountants and how financial statements fit together. It will explain, in a practical way, the financial statements of an organization and how to read and understand them plus basic accounting concepts such as depreciation, cost behaviour, cash flow, working capital, and budgeting.

By the end of this Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course you will be able to:

Explain the purpose of the three key financial statements ‘Income Statement, Statement of Financial Position, and Cash Flow Statement’.
Define the four key financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, cash flow and changes in owner equity as well as key financial terms such as profit, margins and leverage used in organizations
Interpret the financial health and condition of a company, division or responsibility centre and use financial information for management and evaluation
Distinguish between accounting and finance and explain the finance role in running businesses
Prepare a company’s operating budget and relate it to the organization’s strategic objectives
Apply capital budgeting techniques and cost-volume-profit analysis to enhance decision making
Demystify the rules of capital expenditure vs operational expenditure helping you to justify investments to your senior managers and finance team.
Simply assess the viability of entering new markets or developing new products.

This Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course is ideal for:

Non-finance professionals at all levels who need to develop an understanding of business finance.
All staff within a business, company, partnership or charitable organisation should have an understanding of finance in order to contribute to their organisation’s success.
Anyone who is in a role where they need to understand how their business is managed financially.
This training course is ideal for people who feel baffled by a set of accounts and want to feel more confident when using accounts and gain a basic understanding of financial management.

Course Outline

5 days course

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

The Nature and Purpose of Finance and Accounting

A simple model of an organisation’s accounting framework

Understanding the accounting cycle
The five main accounts in financial statements
Income statement: a tool for performance measurement
Accrual basis versus cash basis
Balance sheet: a tool for financial position
The balanced status
Statement of owners’ equity
Statement of cash flows: cash is king
Wrapping-up: the cycle of financial statements
External and internal auditors’ responsibilities

Analysis of Financial Statements

Why are ratios useful
Horizontal and trend analysis
Vertical analysis: common size statements
Building blocks analysis and reading through the numbers:
Liquidity ratios: ability to settle short-term dues
Solvency ratios: ability to settle long-term dues
Activity ratios: the ability to manage assets efficiently
Profitability ratios
Limitations of financial ratio analysis

Working Capital Management

Definition of working capital and working capital management
Working capital management strategies for current assets
Balancing profitability and liquidity
Working capital management strategies for current liabilities
Trade-off between profitability and certainty

The Concept of Financial Management

Accounting versus finance: rules and responsibilities
Three pillars of finance:
- Financing decisions
- Investing decisions
- Operating decisions

Breakeven Analysis and Decision Making

Defining fixed costs
Defining variable costs
Contribution margin formula
Computing breakeven point
Sensitivity analysis: changing assumptions

Operating Budget Process and Techniques

What is an operating budget
Steps to budget development
Master budget components
Sales forecasting
Approaches to budgeting
Incremental budgeting
Zero-based budgeting
Budgetary control and correction

Capital Budgeting: The Investing Decisions

Examples of exercises involving capital budgeting exercise
Time value of money: a prerequisite for investing decisions
Required rate of return for investments
Examples of cash outflows for capital projects
Examples of cash inflows for projects
Net present value calculation
Internal rate of return

Finance for Non-Finance Managers

Course Info

Course Details

By the end of this Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course you will be able to:

This Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course is ideal for:

Course Outline

The Nature and Purpose of Finance and Accounting

Analysis of Financial Statements

Working Capital Management

The Concept of Financial Management

Breakeven Analysis and Decision Making

Operating Budget Process and Techniques

Capital Budgeting: The Investing Decisions

Course Video

Finance for Non-Finance Managers

Course Info

Course Details

By the end of this Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course you will be able to:

This Finance for Non-Finance Managers Course is ideal for:

Course Outline

The Nature and Purpose of Finance and Accounting

Analysis of Financial Statements

Working Capital Management

The Concept of Financial Management

Breakeven Analysis and Decision Making

Operating Budget Process and Techniques

Capital Budgeting: The Investing Decisions

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