Smith School of Business
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Full disclaimer.Who should attend
Managers and executives from a non-accounting background who want to improve their ability to work with accounting and financial information and improve their decision-making skills.
About the course
This program focuses specifically on the principles of business accounting covered in our 5-day Finance for the Non-Financial Manager program. It is designed to provide a deeper understanding of accounting for people from other functional areas.
Our experienced faculty will de-mystify accounting principles, helping you to understand and analyze financial statements, and to use accounting tools to make better business decisions. Session leaders present the material in a straightforward and engaging format that makes complex accounting concepts easy to understand.
In this program you will learn to:
- Interpret accounting reports
- Use accounting tools to make better business decisions
- Engage in more productive communication with accounting and finance managers
- Understand the financial impact of business decisions
Personal Benefits
- Increased ability and confidence to include more analysis in your decision-making process
- Greater familiarity with accounting terms and acronyms permitting more effective communication with accounting and financial colleagues
- Better decision-making thanks to a more complete analytical skillset
Organizational Benefits
- Improved communication functional managers and accounting/financial managers
- Better decision-making with improved performance for the organization
- Higher retention of high-potential managers thanks to investing in their development and growth
Content
Module 1
Deciphering key accounting and financial statements
- Understanding the essentials of accrual accounting
- Learning how to read financial statements such as balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, and statements of retained earnings
- Understanding financial concepts such as depreciation, sunk costs, retained earnings, and goodwill
- Interpreting cash flow patterns and recognizing trends in financial performance to make better business decisions
Assessing your organization’s health and evaluating its future direction
- Assessing working capital requirements
- Using accounting ratios to improve liquidity, profitability, capital structure and asset utilization
- Understanding how accounting fits into the broader decision-making framework
- Assessing the financial health of competitors
Module 2
Modelling profitability against changing volumes and cost behaviour
- Understanding cost behavior over a relevant range of activity
- Employing sensitivity analysis, break-even analysis, keep/drop analysis, and scenario analysis to improve decision-making
- Applying the principles of Target Costing to your operations
- Applying the principles of Activity Based Costing and Target Costing to your operations
- Employing sensitivity analysis, break-even analysis, keep/drop analysis, and scenario analysis to improve decision-making
Making more effective decisions on capital expenses, capital budgeting, and funding new initiatives
- Appraising investment opportunities and ranking capital investment alternatives
- Using financial tools such as Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), nominal and discounted payback to evaluate capital investment opportunities
- Understanding how to use Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), Economic Value Added (EVA) for evaluating operating decisions
Experts
John Moore
Assistant Professor John Moore is an experienced executive educator who has written one of Canada''s most popular series of self-study accounting workbooks. He is highly regarded in the accounting and finance professions, and has conducted executive development seminars on financial tools for...
Videos and materials
Accounting and Finance Fundamentals at Smith School of Business
Because of COVID-19, many providers are cancelling or postponing in-person programs or providing online participation options.
We are happy to help you find a suitable online alternative.