Business Financial & Accounting Skills

Business Financial & Accounting Skills

Program Objectives:

The aims of this course are to:

1. develop an understanding of the more important concepts and components in accounting and financial management;
2. provide frameworks to formulate and appraise accounting concepts, strategies and policies;
3. apply these techniques in business situations (both private and public), and
4. understand the interface between financial management and the other functions in an organisation.

:Course Outline

Introduction and Overview:

• The nature of accounting.
• The differences between financial and managerial accounting.
• The desirable characteristics of accounting information.
• The principles of effective financial management.
• The differences between accounting and financial management in the private sector and    public sector.
• The background to the preparation of the key financial accounting statements.
• The structure and content of three primary financial statements:
• the balance sheet
• the statement of financial performance (which is either a Profit and Loss Account for a private sector activity or an operating statement for a public sector organisation), and
• the cash-flow statement.
• The legal and quasi-legal background to financial reporting.
• The role of external audit in relation to annual financial reports

Financial Statement Analysis:

• Identify the informational requirements of key user groups
• Calculate ratios in terms of -
• Study ratio relationships in order to -
• Brief an accountant on how best to undertake a financial analysis on your behalf (i.e., from your stakeholder point of view).

Capital Appraisal:

• The principles and objectives behind longer-term decision-making.
• The application of the key non-discounting and discounting capital budgeting techniques.
• The advantages of the discounting techniques over the non-discounting techniques.
• The practical issues surrounding the application of the net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) techniques.
• The importance of post-completion audits of capital projects.

Costing Concepts and Working Capital Management:

• There are in fact many individual concepts and measures of ‘cost’.
• That different costs are needed for external reporting, forward planning and budgetary management and control.
• Costs relate to time and activity.
• The concept of working capital and why its effective management is important to the financial success of enterprises.
• The concept of the cash conversion cycle and its effective management.
• The principles behind the management of inventories, of debtors and creditors

Short-term Decision Making:

• That short-term decisions are mainly concerned with making the most cost-effective and profitable use of existing resources.
• The meaning of ‘avoidable cost’ and ‘attributable’ cost.
• The basic techniques of cost estimation.
• The use of cost-volume-profit charts in order to determine break-even activity levels, profit and contribution.
• The attributes of ABC costing for activity-based (cost) management.
• The uses and limitations of cost information for determining and reviewing prices.

Budgetary Control- Planning and Decision Making:

• Budgeting: Financial budgets and forecasts.
• Steps of proper budgeting Assumptions.
• Data collection.
• Budget formulation: Budget procedure.
• Types of budgets.
• Different kinds of budgeting methods, e.g. zero based, activity based.
• How to develop a budgeting methodology.
• How to evaluate the output from budget preparation.
• Budgetary control.
• Budget follow-up and reports: Performance review.
• Variance determination.
• Revisions of budgets and forecast.