Finance for Non-Financial Managers (2 days)

Overview: What could be achieved if everyone in your organisation had a greater all round awareness of financial matters? Imagine what it would be like if all of those with a budget responsibility not only created and managed their budget effectively but also truly understood the impact of it on the financial performance of the organisation overall? Consider what it might mean if everyone involved in large expenditures (project or capital) were able to take all of the relevant areas into account and perform some financial evaluation of their ideas before making the decision to spend.

This course covers all of the above areas and participants will leave with a solid understanding of the key areas of finance and have practical tools and techniques to take away and implement back into your organisation. Each participant will be asked to prepare a personal action plan at the end of the course to ensure that they have taken the time to consider how to put ideas into practice.

Course content:

• What is a profit and loss account (or income and expenditure account for non-profit making organisations)? Structure, content, terminology, how information gets onto it
• Positively impacting the profit and loss account: what can be done operationally to get the best results financially? Influencing gross profit and controlling costs. Use of cost drivers as a technique to reduce costs without having a negative effect on the ability to achieve objectives
• What is a balance sheet? Structure, content, terminology, how information gets onto it
• Which parts of a balance sheet can you influence on a day to day basis and how to do so positively
• The differences between profit and cash
• The importance of good cash flow management and everyday ways that it can be done
• Interpreting accounts using ratios and considering how they can be improved
• Manipulating the accounts through adjustments including accruals, prepayments and deferred income. Why these adjustments are done, how to do them and important things to be aware of.
• Techniques for financially evaluating capital expenditures/projects
• Business cases: what important elements should be considered when contemplating large expenditure?
• Creating an effective budget: the importance of good budgeting, techniques, pros/cons of each and how to identify the relevant costs for a budget
• Managing a budget successfully: what should a budget holder do?
• Variance analysis, action planning, forecasting

Who is it for? This course is useful for anyone at any level in the organisation as everyone can influence the financial performance of it. It would be relevant for people involved in creating and/or managing budgets and who wish to learn more about the impact of their budget on their organisation. As with all of our courses, the level that this is aimed at can be flexed up or down as appropriate for the needs of the course participants.

Course duration: 2 days

Tailoring the course: Whilst we are more than happy to provide you with a generic course, we find that tailoring our courses to the particular needs of the course participants and to your own organisation provides the best results by far.

Any of our courses can be tailored to your specific organisation and incorporate your terminology, processes, reports, etc. We find that this really helps the course participants to see the relevance of the course content and assists them with understanding areas of finance that could potentially appear complex as we are using language and examples that they are familiar with and can easily relate to.

Please contact us to discuss how we can make this work best for you.

© 2011 FST&C Ltd in Essex near Cambridge - Financial Training Courses, E-Learning Courses, Financial for Non Financial Managers, Financial Classes, UK
Tel: 01799 540488   Email: enquiries@fstandc.co.uk

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