Finance for Non-Financial Managers — A 2-Day Course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Course Synopsis

• Do you feel confused by your finance team?
• Do you want to identify which of your actions produce the greatest return?
• Do you need to create or manage a budget but don't know where to start?
• Do you wish you had a way to determine why some of your processes are underperforming?
• Would you like to challenge finance on the numbers on your P&L?
• Do you feel out of your depth when it comes to financial reports?

If the answer is "YES" - this is the course for you!

Finance for Non-Financial Managers gives you the power to manage your business finances and hold confident discussions about them, without resorting to accountant speak. Management decisions rely heavily on a sound understanding of the financial implications to the business. As a result you need to have an awareness of how financial systems work, basic accounting principles and company accounts.

Additionally you need to be able to manage your own budget and/or P&L accounts with the confidence to challenge the finance team where necessary and delve into the detail behind questionable numbers.

This course gives non financial people the power to manage their business finances and hold confident discussions about them.

Course Objectives

On completion of this Finance for Non-Financial Managers training course, delegates will gain:

• An understanding of standard financial documents such as annual reports, P&Ls
• Ability to manage performance measurements
• Confidence in talking about financial information
• Ability to look at your own financial documents and challenge where necessary
• Gain an historical perspective of accounting and understand why it caught on!
• Understanding of cash flow forecasting
• Understanding of the commercial impact of your actions

From the Practical Workshops, students will gain:

• Practice at looking at financial reports
• Experience of creating budgets
• Practice forecasting cash flow
• Perform a cost benefit analysis
• Curiosity about the financial workings of your firm
• Ability to define profit and how it is achieved

Intended Audience

This course is intended for:

• Business Managers, Business Consultants and Analysts, Project Managers and all whose work involves an appreciation of finance, budgets, cashflow and accounting methods
• Anyone who will influence the making of financial decisions

Benefits for your Company

All companies need to control their business with sound financial information. Managers who understand how to create models for projects, expenses, new buildings etc to assess their financial viability are a useful commodity. Additionally organisations benefit from managers who can confidently steer their business from a financial perspective, asking the advice of and challenging the finance team where relevant: increasingly it is an expected part of the manager's role.

Benefits for You

Once you understand the simple structures that lie beneath the plethora of numbers you start to see patterns. You will be able to read a company report and draw meaning from it. You will feel a confidence and even, dare we suggest it, a fondness for your budget or P&L. You will start to know what to expect to see and be confident of challenging when it doesn't look as you expected.

You will also be able to confidently plan a new project or venture by setting a budget and understanding how to track performance against it. This course carries the award of 15 Professional Development Units (PDU's) for PMI re-certification

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Introduction & Welcome

You will meet like-minded people, discuss the challenges you face and share your reasons for wanting to be on the course.

An experienced, friendly trainer will help you visualise where you want this course to take you.

Business and Financial Systems Overview

You will gain a big picture overview of how accounting structures started and how they developed into the huge corporate structures that we have now. This demystifies some of the language surrounding finance. You start asking questions in financial language.

Accounting Transactions

You will gain an appreciation of double entry accounts and how they work. You will understand the names and functions of all the essentials including: turnover, revenue, profits, balance sheet, liabilities, income statement and cash flow.

You will start to see finance documents in a way that enables you to make sense of them.

Interpret Accounts

In this session you start to be able to make sense of whole documents and create a story from them. You will be able to spot which areas of business are not performing and why that might be. You will look at profit and loss accounts and understand the difference between fixed and current assets are and how depreciation impacts your accounts.

Using data from a case study you will look at company accounts and look for trends in the data to make sense from them.

Budgets & Budgetary Control

You will learn what a budget is and how to construct one. You will look at how you control against a budget once it exists and what can be done if you realise your actuals (what really happened) does not match the forecast (what you predicted would happen).

You practice more finance speak and get comfortable with creating budgets.

Management Accounting & Performance Management

This section allows you to be able to speak the language of business properly. You will discuss profit and margins and how to decide if a business is performing well or not. You will use various tools to manage performance.

You start learning tools to help you assess your own financial performance.

Funds Management and Cash Flow Forecasting

This section will show you why cash forecasting is so important: as the famous saying goes: "revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is king!" You will also learn the basics of fund management.

You will experience the type of decisions needed when managing funds and you will see the problems associated with forecasting cash flow.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Here you will understand an often used tool in management. It is used often because it shows how good a proposal is in terms of what it will cost against the benefits it brings. Tangible and intangible benefits are discussed (for example increased customer goodwill versus saving £10,000).

You will learn how to do a cost benefit analysis.