Finance for Non-Financial Managers - Improving Financial Literacy

Complete Seminar Details

You will learn how to

• Integrate financial concepts and policies into the management decision and budgeting process
• Evaluate the financial viability of projects and activities through income statements, balance sheets and investment projections
• Employ cash flow to analyze business status
• Control business operations through effective budget management
• Communicate effectively with financial executives and staff

Course benefits

This course transforms financial and accounting language and concepts into decision-making tools the non-financial manager can use successfully every day. Course participants learn to apply the fundamentals of finance to improve budget management, increase potential profits, sell new ideas and assess the financial viability of projects.

Who should attend

Course workshop

• Analyzing and creating income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements
• Establishing and managing realistic operating budgets
• Selecting the most profitable projects or activities
• Calculating a budget to achieve stated financial goals
• Applying financial principles to real-world situations

Course content

• Demystifying financial jargon
• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP)
• Public vs. private financial methodologies
• Accountability and responsibility for financial information

THE KEY BUILDING BLOCKS OF FINANCIAL CONTROL

• Decoding the income statement
• Differentiating income, operating and capital expense items
• Putting the pieces together to measure profit and business success
• When a sale becomes a sale: sales recognition
• Analyzing the balance sheet
• Evaluating the worth of an established business
• Distinguishing between fixed and current assets and liabilities
• Defining depreciation and amortization
• Linking the income statement to the balance sheet
• Shareholder equity

CASH FLOW: THE LIFEBLOOD OF ORGANIZATIONS

• Making the key connection between business activity and cash flow
• Differentiating between cash flow, profit and net worth
• Connecting cash management to line management
• Credit and cash flow--maximizing benefits and minimizing costs
• How much cash is enough?
• The importance of depreciation and amortization
• How depreciation impacts your budget over time
• Methods for calculating depreciation
• Advantages and disadvantages of various key methods
• Impacting the management budget
• Where depreciation rules come from

MANAGING A PROFIT OR COST CENTER

• Selecting the best costing method for your situation
• Absorption, marginal, activity-based costing
• Determining costs in service businesses
• Avoiding costing traps
• The unique features of project costing
• Estimating project duration and future costs
• Leveraging debt to your advantage
• Anticipating problems using cost control
• Making estimates based on incomplete information
• Choosing projects that optimize shareholders' interests
• Making the financial case using return on investment (ROI)
• Advantages and disadvantages of ROI, payback, discounted cash flow (DCF) and NPV techniques
• Selecting viable projects

A MANAGER'S GUIDE TO BUDGETING

• Recognizing that budgets are more than numbers
• Budgeting as sociology, not accounting
• The politics of getting a budget approved
• The relationship between a well-designed budget and how others measure your performance
• Managing effectively within budgeting constraints
• Comparing budget approaches
• Top-down
• Bottom-up
• Types of budgets
• Incremental
• Zero-based
• Rolling
• Others
• Developing the budget numbers
• Budgeting as a planning and control tool
• Using the budget to control the business
• Limiting factors
• Budget process and coordination
• Forecasting sales revenues and expenses
• Adjusting the budget to reality

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

• Applying financial tools and concepts in the real world
• Evaluating a company's health through its annual report
• Comparing public and private sector practices
• Recognizing potential traps in creative accounting
• Learning from recent examples

Are You Ready to Learn... Anywhere?

Attend live, instructor-led Learning Tree classes via your computer from wherever you want with NEW Learning Tree AnyWare™. Now you can learn from the world's best instructors and gain the management, leadership or IT skills you need to become even more effective in your job... from wherever you are!

You participate in every aspect of the live course exactly as if you were in the physical classroom! With our groundbreaking Learning Tree AnyWare user portal, you can attend from anywhere with live video streaming over the Internet.

• See and hear your instructor live, presenting and annotating the course materials on the in-class dual-screen MagnaLearn™ course content delivery system.
• Communicate in real-time directly with the instructor and your classmates both by voice and through the use of a Chat pod. Ask questions. Provide comments. Participate in the class discussions. Engage in collaborative "breakout" sessions.
• Perform the same hands-on exercises, with live assistance from your expert instructor, using the same in-class computers and software as the participants in the classroom, except that you perform them from anywhere!

Be There with Learning Tree AnyWare

Take the Next Step…

Click on a "REMOTE TRAINING" date above to enroll online as a Learning Tree AnyWare participant.

Sponsor Background:

Learning Tree International is a world leader in Hands-on training for Management and Technology Professionals. Since 1974, over 1,700,000 course participants from over 13,000 organizations around the world have enhanced their skills through intensive hands-on exercises under the guidance of expert instructors with real-world experience.

Virtually every major company and government agency has relied on Learning Tree to provide its managers and employees with the skills they need to succeed in their job functions.

10 Reasons to Choose Learning Tree

... over 1.7 million professionals have trained with Learning Tree

1 Benefit from 32 Years of Training Excellence

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2 Learn from Expert Instructors

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10 Vendor-Independent Training

Learning Tree was, is and will continue to be independent of vendor influences. That means you get training that is unbiased. We present an objective, evenhanded treatment of the pros and cons of new products, techniques and technology. You even learn about third-party alternatives that the vendors themselves would never tell you about.

Learning Tree Management Training

For over 32 years, Learning Tree has been dedicated to meeting the professional development needs of people like you. Now, more than ever, superior management, leadership and interpersonal skills are critical to individual and organizational success. And it is equally critical to be able to apply those skills in complex, technology-intensive environments.

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Get Real-World Solutions from Expert Instructors

Learning Tree instructors are active practitioners who work full time in high-tech companies, R & D labs and other business environments where they use the very technologies and skills they teach. Because they have already solved the same problems you are likely to encounter, our instructors are equipped to share their real-world experience and practical solutions with you. Everything you learn is practical, relevant and up to the minute.