Fundamentals of Finance & Accounting

Objectives

• Read and interpret financial statements
• Analyse business performance
• Contribute to cash and working capital management
• Build budgets and Manage costs and budgets
• Present business cases and utilise financing techniques to improve decision making

Outline

The Basics
• Accounting Terminology and Policies
• Accounting as an information system
• The accounting equation- what does it mean
• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
• Differentiating between cash and accrual basis accounting
• Basic cash flow statements
• Walking through an Annual Report
• The annual report package
• The role of external auditor
• The accountant’s report and auditor’s opinion
How To Interpret Accounts and Financial Statement Analysis
• Preparing income statement & balance sheet
• Financial and liquidity ratios
• The cash conversion cycle
• Working capital management
• Profitability and gearing ratios
• Du Pont Formula
• Financial & Non-financial analysis
• Credit analysis
• Z- Scores and credit ratings
• Bank lending decisions
Planning for Profit
• Understanding and working with costs
• Plan for cost reduction and profit improvement
• Fixed and variable costs income statement
• Break-even analysis
• Contribution margin
• Costing approaches – Full Absorption, Marginal, ABC
• Standard Costing
• New ideas in cost management – lean principles
Budgeting in Today’s Competitive Business
• The Budgeting Process
• The role of budgeting
• Annual budgeting process
• Identifying and resolving budgeting variances
• Different budgeting systems in use today
• Budgeting tips and techniques
• Variance analysis
Cash Flow & Investment Decisions
• Capital budgeting
• Weighted Average Cost of Capital
• Present Value
• Internal Rate of Return – method
• Profitability Index
• Discounted cash flow

Who Should Attend ?

Financial Accountants
Receivables and Payables Team Members
Planning and Budgeting Managers