Business Financial & Accounting Skills

OBJECTIVES

• Need for risk assessment in estimating
• Estimation techniques: regression, Delphi , moving averages
• Pareto’s rule
• Data collection
• Financial concepts (e.g., capital budgeting, sunk costs)
• Analyzing cost data
• Benefit-cost analysis

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• Financial professionals, finance controllers treasurers and inventory professionals
• Senior professionals with a direct responsibility for financial management and control
• Accountants, planners, & cost professionals
• Any professional who has responsibility for any portion of the planning process
• Any professional, at a medium and senior level, who is a part of the financial decision making team
• New interns and trainees with finance related responsibilities

COURSE OUTLINE

DAY 1

Introduction – Finance versus Accounting

• Identify the major differences and similarities between financial and managerial accounting
• Understand the role of management accountants in an organization
• Understand the basic concepts underlying just-in-time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), process reengineering, and the theory of constraints (TOC)
• Discuss the impact of international competition on businesses and on managerial accounting
• Explain the importance of upholding ethical standards

DAY 2

Long-term planning

• What is a budget
• Budgeting basics
• Various types of budgets
• The budgeting process
• Budget preparation
• Identify the characteristics of well-designed management accounting and control systems (MACS)
• Describe total-life-cycle costing
• Understand target costing
• Understand Kaizen costing

DAY 3

Costing basics

• What is costing
• Defining costs
• Cost behavior
• Breakeven models
• The Equation Method
• Target Net Profit Analysis
• Costing models
• Incorrect assumptions
• Activity Based Costing

DAY 4

Control for success – Performance measurement

• Strategic planning measures
• Accounting-based performance measures
• Company versus division performance
• Financial performance measures
• Problems with financial measures
• Value of financial performance measures
• Indicators for managers
• Balanced scorecard
• Not-for-profit organizations

DAY 5

Bringing it all together

• Discuss the design and use of responsibility centers in an organization
• Understand the issues and basic tools related to assessing the performance of a responsibility center
• Recognize common forms of responsibility centers
• Understand two commonly-used planning and control methods used to evaluate responsibility center performance
• Discuss transfer pricing alternatives in organizations
• Understand the use of return on investment and economic value added as financial control tools
• Identify the limitations of using financial controls