Advanced Reporting and Budgeting

Those for whom finance is part of their responsibility or are new to management and need a greater understanding of finance. They will be from all sectors, including private, public and not-for-profit including:

• Those who are new managers or managers wanting a refresher
• Budget holders who want to create and manage their budgets more effectively
• Operations managers who want to know more about cost management and projects
• Sales and marketing employees who want to understand financial statements
• Anyone who needs to understand key accounting concepts, and improve forecasting and cost management skills
• Managers whoare about to be promoted into positions which require financial literacy
• Managers facing financial decisions or expect to make a contribution to a wider planning process

• Introduce fundamental bookkeeping and accounting concepts enabling them to manage the financial aspects of their role more effectively
• Review the different approaches taken in the public and private sector
• Make sense of key financial statements and key ratios
• Managefinancial aspects of projects more effectively
• Assist in putting together a budget to justify expected expenditure
• Measure budgetary performance
• Conduct effective investment appraisals

Concepts and Principles

• Bookkeeping versus accounting
• Cash accounting versus accrual accounting and use in private and public sectors
• Types of accounts in the General Ledger, their purpose and the chart of accounts
• Double-entry bookkeeping concepts and implications
• Depreciation and amortisation

Interpreting Financial Statements

• The income statement (P & L) statement, format, content and key concepts
• Interpretation of key ratios derived from the income statement; P/E ratio, Profit margin
• The language and major components of the balance sheet
• Business ratios derived from the balance sheet and P & L together, liquidity, debt, profitability etc

Investment Appraisal

• Defining the value generated and the required return – the hurdle rate
• Return on capital employed – calculation methodology and interpretation
• Payback period calculations
• NPV and IRR calculations
• Non-financial aspects of investment appraisal and decision making

Essential Budgeting Process

• Purpose and benefits, problems and limitations of capital and operational budgets and the important differences
• Budget processes in the private sector
• Budget processes in the public sector
• Identification of risks to the budget and actions to mitigate them

Measuring Financial Statements

• What is financial performance?
• Financial performance in the public sector
• The importance of cash flow – how to measure and improve it
• Gross profit, operating profit, net profit margin
• Key performance ratios

Investment Appraisal

• Defining the value generated and the required return – the hurdle rate
• Return on capital employed – calculation methodology and interpretation
• Payback period calculations
• NPV and IRR calculations
• Non-financial aspects of investment appraisal and decision making

Management Accounting

• Types of management information prepared for internal consumption
• Financial information managers need in order to be able to manage – the power of comparisons
• Historical revenues and profits, cost trends, product profit margins, receivables information, budget comparisons, break-even analysis and contribution margin analysis.

Managing the Costs and Finances of Projects

• The stages of project management – PMBOK® Guide and Prince 2 compared
• Building the Business case and getting approval for funding
• Estimating project costs – expert, analogous parametric, bottom up estimating etc
• Understanding Gantt charts
• Project forecasts
• Project risks and financial implications

Building an Effective Budget

• Public Sector context of financial management
• Public budgeting seen through four perspectives – political, economists, accountants, managers
• Approaches to budgeting including; line item budgeting, program budgeting, zero-based budgeting, priority-based budgeting
• Three pre-requisites for budget preparation
• Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks – aligning budgets

Investment and Risk

• Building an investment portfolio – key questions – WHY are we investing, REQUIRED RETURN, WHAT do we invest in, WHEN do we invest, WHERE do we invest
• Five key stages – risk preference, asset classes, amount to invest in each class, choose investments, monitor and rebalance
• Fundamental and Technical analysis techniques
• Identification and mitigation of key risks