NEW Finance for the Non Financial Manager

Early Bird Discount! SAVE £200

Book before 10 February 2012 and pay only £699 +VAT per delegate, rather than the usual course price of £899 +VAT

Target Audience

This programme is designed, and applicable to all non financial professionals looking to develop their financial knowledge:

• Directors, managers and all those from non-financial disciplines.
• Newly appointed managers, supervisors and team leaders.
• Senior managers with expertise in areas other than finance.

Course Programme

What do accountants do?

• The finance function, types of accountants, financial vs. management accounting and the treasury function
• Understanding the role of the finance function and how the information they provide may be used

The basic financial statements

• Balance sheets and Income statements (P&L accounts)
• What they are, what they contain and above all what they can reveal - how to read them
• The accounting process - from transactions to financial statements
• What underpins the statements - accounting systems and internal controls

Why be in business? - from a financial perspective

• The driving forces behind financial information.
• Performance measures
• Profitability
• asset utilization
• sales and throughput
• managing capital expenditure

Accounting rules - accounting standards

• Accounting concepts and the accounting rules: Accruals, Going Concern - substance over form and other 'desirable qualities'
• Accruals - why the timing of a transaction is so important to the finance function
• Depreciation and amortisation - the concepts and practice
• Accounting standards - the role of IFRS's

Budgeting

• Why budget?  -  what is good and bad practice
• Determining why budgets play a key role and should not be simply an annual ritual
• Justifying your budgets - the link between the strategic plan and day to day budgeting - alignment of  company culture
• Budgets as motivators - the importance of the right culture
• Techniques to improve budgeting - whether day to day or capital budgeting

Costing

• The type and detail of costing very much depends on your business - eg manufacturing piston rings is quite different from costing in a retail chain.
• Cost behaviour and issues
• Issues with overhead allocation
• ABC

Reading financial statements

• Annual financial statements: Why they are produced, contents, what you should look for.
• Learning what a set of accounts reveals about a company's current situation, profitability and future prospects

Performance measurement - analytical reviews and ratio analysis

• ROI/ROCE
• Profitability / margins / cost control
• Sales - asset turnover
• Efficiency (asset / stock turnover, debtor / creditor days)
• 'City' measures
• Investment (interest / dividend cover, earnings per share, dividend yield)

Course Director

Ralph Tiffin

Ralph is principal of McLachlan+Tiffin, chartered accountants and statutory auditors.  The practice focuses on audit and also supports clients with advisory work in areas such as introduction of budgeting, project appraisal IFRS, ethics and fraud prevention. As a professional consultant, Ralph has a wealth of experience with companies of all sizes in the UK, Asia and the Middle East.  His firm and associated consultancy has many clients in the construction, manufacturing, engineering and retail sectors. Longstanding clients include telecoms, international food companies, manufacturers, ship owning and ship management companies.

With his background in engineering and day to day working with diverse businesses Ralph spends approx one third of his time lecturing on accounting topics, project appraisal and management issues.