Finance for non financial managers

Course summary

This training course demystifies finance. It will give you a thorough grounding in organisational finance and how it works, so that you can understand and communicate about the finances of your organisation, team or project. Using layperson's language, it looks at a range of financial tools and concepts and gives you the confidence to use them. This is finance training at its best - clear, informative and fun!


Course outline

This two day training course will cover:
Financial accounts

• reading an income and expenditure account and analysing the finance flows within your organisation
• the different rules for charity accounting under the Charity SORP and the presentation of company and housing association accounts
• cash and accruals accounting showing how each is used
• terminology associated with income and expenditure accounting
• communicating effectively with finance professionals
• analysing trends in financial flows and formulating appropriate questions
• reading a balance sheet and analyse the financial position of the organisation
• how an asset register is used
• analysing your accounts
• constructing a cash flow statement from narrative information
• using accounts to deduce the strengths, weaknesses and risk exposure of the organisation

Management accounts

• the budgeting process
• how budgeting relates to strategic objectives and good governance
• constructing a budget
• estimating costs and income accurately for budget purposes
• using management accounts to understand the past and forecast the future
• cost centres and income streams - understanding how they are used in your organisaiton
• nominal, purchase and sales ledgers
• risk management
• using benchmarking in constructing a budget
• distinguishing between fixed and variable costs
• using the concepts of break-even pricing
• a template to forecast the effects of changing costs, sales volume and price
• evaluating opportunity costs

"Excellent and well run course. Kept my attention throughout at a high level. Fully recommend it." GB, London and Quadrant Housing Trust
"I will no longer feel as daunted or intimidated by accountants and trustees." JW, Carers Bucks
"It has built my confidence and filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge and technical understanding." SK, Hackney Training and Employment Network


Who is this course for?

This course is for budget holders and anyone who needs to know about organisational finance, including managers and board members. It is a stand-alone course (ie you can sign up just for this training), and is also part of our Certificate of Leadership and Management programme (University of London).

"Demystified the language of finance and made me understand the story behind the figures - I wont be afraid again!" JP, WelCare Service Trust


What will this course help me do: learning outcomes?

The finance training course will help you understand your organisation's finances and how your own budget and expenditure fits in. It will give you an understanding of some basic financial tools as well as some useful spreadsheets to take away. It will help you communicate on equal terms with financial professionals including your treasurer, finance officer or accountant.

We also run a one day in-house course on evaluating financial performance, designed to provide participants of not for profit organisations with the understanding they require to evaluate the financial performance and to develop strategies to address any weaknesses. This course would be particularly useful for trustee boards.