Finance for Non Finance Professionals In-House Training Course Jeddah , KSA

Course overview

Finance skills have become crucial for every business professional involved in making financial decisions. Understanding fundamental budgeting principles can help make more rational and justified financial management decisions that are backed up with calculations in today's increasingly digital business environment.

This basic finance skills training provides non-finance professionals and specialists with all the tools they need to effectively analyze their business and work from a financial performance perspective using both traditional methods and modern digital tools. You will be able to analyze the three financial statements and how they are linked with each other: the Profit & Loss Statement (P&L), the Balance Sheet, and the Cash Flow Statement. You will learn how to analyze the performance of the company or your department even further by using key financial ratios and digital analytical tools; you will get a basic understanding of financial reporting and financial investment decision-making in the context of digital transformation. The course will cover Investment Appraisal, which means how to determine whether a new investment or new business venture will provide a good Return on Investment in both traditional and digital business models.

This course on financial performance and analysis has a high level of involvement. Once you learn the structure and approach for each section of the course, you will do practical tasks, quizzes, and exercises using modern financial software. Throughout the course, we will use the same fictional business for financial statements and analysis to help non-financial specialists apply the concepts in realistic scenarios.

The participants of this finance for non-finance managers course will get the following outcomes from the training:

• Understand the structure of the P&L, the Balance Sheet, and the Cash Flow Statement, and how digital transactions impact them
• Be able to grasp the financial statements to understand the performance of the business using automated analysis tools
• To understand the connections between the three fundamental financial statements in traditional and digital contexts
• Know how to manage Working Capital to increase cash flow on the same revenue, considering digital payment systems
• Understand how to use financial ratios and modern software to analyze the performance of the business
• Get an essential understanding of budgeting and how to connect it with your strategy in a digitally transformed business environment

Who Should Attend

• Project Managers and Team Leaders
• Divisional and Department Heads
• Department Heads & Managers
• Investment professionals
• Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
• Experienced Managers and Directors who want to improve their financial acumen
• Managers and Executives of all levels with a non-financial background
• Individuals who want to raise their financial awareness

What will you gain

• Acquire fundamental knowledge of financial principles to improve budget management
• Become an advanced decision maker with the help of modern financial tools and methods
• Understand how provisions such as bad debts and warranties affect your P&L
• Be aware of how to understand the Balance Sheet and analyze Working Capital
• Grasp the essentials of the structure of the Cash Flow Statement and its importance
• Know how accruals and prepaids are dealt with on the three fundamental financial statements
• Realize the importance of optimum asset utilization and its practical application
• Know how to efficiently use breakeven analysis for better decision making
• Use variance analysis for successful operational controlling and monitoring
• Understand budgeting foundations and be able to operate with various budgeting approaches
• Apply Investment Appraisal techniques (ROI) to evaluate investment decisions

Course content

• The Role of Finance and Accounting in the Modern Organization
  • The role of the Finance Department and Operations
  • How should Finance and Operations work together?
  • The purpose of profit and of financial statements
  • Digital Tools in Financial Operations
• Understanding and Analyzing P&L
  • Direct costs and indirect costs
  • Analyzing gross profit
  • Analyzing operating expenses
  • Defining more controllable vs. less controllable costs
  • Comparison and contrasting EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization), EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) and PAT (Profit After Tax)
  • Reading the P&L for the “story of the business.”
  • Gross margin vs. mark-up
  • The 1% difference: how small changes leverage to big changes
  • Allocation of overheads to the operations
  • Two forms of analysis and its difference
• Understanding and Analyzing the Balance Sheet
  • Balance Sheet Structure: Assets, Liabilities and Owner’s Equity
  • Reading the Balance Sheet to extend the “story of the business”
  • Analyzing Working Capital
  • Analyzing the capital structure
  • What does a “weak” Balance Sheet vs a “strong” Balance Sheet mean?
  • Digital Transformation in Balance Sheet Management
• Understanding and Analyzing the Cash Flow Statement
  • The structure of the Cash Flow Statement: Operating Cash Flow, Investing Cash Flow, Financing Cash Flow
  • Free Cash Flow
  • Extend the “story of the business” even further with the Cash Flow Statement
  • Cash Flow Management in the Digital Age
  • The link between Working Capital and Cash Flow
  • How the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement connect
  • Ratio Analysis
    • Profit ratios: Gross Margin, EBITDA Margin, Net Margin
    • The Dupont Ratios: arriving at ROA (Return On Assets), ROCE (Return On Capital Employed), ROE (Return On Equity)
    • Liquidity ratios: Current Ratio, Quick Ratio
    • Operational efficiency ratios: Inventory Turn/Days, Days Sales Outstanding, Days Payable Outstanding
    • Financial risk ratios: Leverage Ratio, Interest Cover
• Breakeven analysis (cost-volume-profit analysis)
  • Unit contribution and contribution margin
  • Determining the breakeven volume and revenue
  • Determining the required volume for a target profit
  • Volume targets to maintain profits after price changes
  • Using breakeven analysis as a criterion in decision making
• Budgeting and Controlling
  • The connection between the budget and strategy
  • Different budgeting approaches
  • Sales budgeting
  • Expenses budgeting
  • The steps in the budgeting process
  • Information flow in the budgeting process
• Controlling and Variance Analysis
  • The role and function of controlling
  • Variance analysis
• Investment Appraisal for Capital Budgeting and Business Expansion (ROI – Return on Investment)
  • What is investment appraisal?
  • Determining the investing cash flows
  • The first filter: Payback Period
  • The time value of money
  • The cost of capital (discount rate, WACC, hurdle rate, etc.)
  • Deciding the required/targeted rate of return (WACC)
  • Net Present Value (NPV)
  • Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
  • Sometimes we invest despite a poor ROI!