Financial Skills: Finance for Non-financial Managers (2 day)

Course Overview

Whilst organisations increasingly require managers to be specialists in their field, they often also need those managers to have competence in non-specialist areas in order to fulfil their responsibilities. This includes a grasp of basic financial awareness in order to agree and manage budgets effectively and appreciate core financial principles.

Audience

For managers who need to understand the language and basic principles of finance in organisations and who wish to feel confident with budget preparation.

Skills Gained

Delegates will learn how to:

• Understand the basic principles and terminology of finance
• Feel more confident in asking relevant questions and understanding the answers of your finance department
• Improve ability and confidence in preparing and controlling budgets
• Be able to recognise potential financial problems and address them swiftly.

Course Outline

• Addressing the barriers of the jargon of finance that can preclude us from understanding the finance department
• The annual accounts: understanding the differences and links between the profit and loss (or income and expenditure) account, the balance sheet and cash flow statement with practical work to embed the learning
• What is depreciation: methods of calculation and what it means in financial terms
• The behavior of costs and the importance of fixed and variable costs to decision making
• Simple break even, how it helps the business plan for profit and how to calculate it The importance of cash flow to business survival and why profit is not the same thing as cash
• Working capital: what it is and the importance of effective working capital management
• Ratio analysis - how we use financial ratios to assess trends and understand their implications for the organisation
• Managerial responsibility: preparing budgets, the 7 steps to successful budgeting, preparing a budget under realistic constraints, monitoring and control of budgets.

Financial Skills: Finance for Non-financial Managers (2 day) / F-NFM2