Finance for Non-Finance Professionals

Course Description:

Professionals with a financial background are considered most efficient at managing any operating scenario. A strong foundation of finance is critical to succeed at any employment level and position. The course transforms accounting and finance concepts into decision making tools that participants can use in their workplace. Knowledge of financial aspects that help in decision making is the key to their success. This course will help you understand how your decisions can improve efficiency, drive successful projects, and impact the financial performance of the business. This two day course taught by certified finance experts with practical industry and training experience covers fundamental concepts of finance and helps participants understand how these concepts are useful for decision making. Participants will gain an understanding of key financial statements and learn practical application of the most important and widely used financial techniques.

What you will learn:

• Understand financial statements and their key elements
• How finance works within an organisation
• Learn about key components needed to improve profitability
• Control a financial system to meet business objectives
• Understand the sources and availability of finance for an organization
• Apply the concepts of accounting and finance to analyze financials
• Profit and loss, balance sheets and cash flow forecasts
• Budgeting and forecasting techniques to improve decision-making
• How to appraise an investment using financial techniques

What you will get:

• 16 PDUs
• High quality training from certified instructor
• Course completion certificate
• Soft copy of courseware
• End-to-end support via email, chat and phone

Course Outline:

Introduction

• The role of finance
• The link between organisational strategy and the need for financial planning
• The elements of financial planning
• The role and activities of  the finance function
• What is accounting?
• The users, uses and different types of financial information

The business model

• The need for finance
• The sources of finance, the costs and the benefits
• Capital and operating expenditure
• Fixed assets
• Working capital and the operating cycle
• Making and measuring profits
• The difference between profits and cash
• Fundamental principles and their impact
• Accruals concept
• Going concern concept

Understanding key components of financial statements

• Balance sheet / Statement of financial position
• Profit or loss / Income statement / Statement of comprehensive income
• Cash flow statement

Analysing and interpreting financial statements

• Evaluating the financial health of a company
• Ratio analysis: profitability, efficiency and liquidity
• Reading through the numbers and understanding trends

Working capital management and the cash cycle

• The importance of cash cycle
• Managing receivables, inventory and payables
• Sources of short term finance

Management accounting and decision making

• Break-even analysis
• Cost behavior
• Pricing strategies

Planning, budgeting and forecasting for organisations

• Understanding the budgeting process
• Motivation and the behavioral aspects of budgeting
• Budgeting and forecasting exercise in excel

Capital projects

• The time value of money
• Investment appraisal techniques
• Discounted cash flow
• Net present value
• Internal rate of return