Professional Skills for Finance and Accounting

Courses Syllabus

Introduction:

Finance is a core process/function in business that requires executive attention. Accounting is the language of business; understanding and applying this language to your business in general remains the single most valuable competence of management. Prepare yourself by enhancing your personal competence in identifying best practices in finance and in accounting. This programme you will:

• Focus on real companies and their finance function and accounting processes to show participants which elements have achieved best practices status
• Will remove much of the mystique associated with the management of finance and accounting
• Focuses on challenging you to become the strategic financial leaders of the organization
• Prepare yourself for future responsibilities by examining best practices in these important functions/processes

Objectives:

Participants attending the programme will:

• Identify best practices for the roles of CFO, controller, treasurer, and accountants in the content of, and relationships between, financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows)
• Discuss best practices in the use of financial statements to evaluate the financial / strategic performance of an organization
• Understand best practices in discounted cash flow (DCF) techniques and their application to financial decision-making
• Identify best practices in corporate performance management using key success factors, weak financial signals, and strong financial signals in various industry sectors
• Understand best practices in how EVA® (Economic Value Added), SVA (Shareholder Value Added), and RI (Residual Income) can be used to value competing strategies
• Define best practices in the value creation/destruction process in mergers and acquisitions from the market perspective and signals to management from the market
• Clarify best practices in the roles of directors, auditors, and others in their respective roles in corporate governance
• Identify best practices in the various sources of financial and business data that provide insights into business and financial strategies
• Identify best practices in the details of financial control, risk management, and financial reporting from the perspectives of the internationally recognized professional associations such as IFAC, IASB, SEC, OECD, and others
• Enhance personal networks of similarly minded high potential managers

The Content:

Getting started with best practices in finance and accounting

• The role of financial management – CFO, Treasurer, and Controller
• The role of functional management in respect to financial management
• The basic financial statements and their articulation
• Evaluating performance and why ROI is still a good place to start
• Competitive perspectives related to financial statements
• Best practices in preparing, presenting, and populating financial statements
• Identifying key success factors in industry sectors
• Deriving lessons learned from Module one

Best practices in early review and projections of strategy via financial statements

• Short-term success evaluations process and measures
• Weak signals for future strategic adjustments
• Buy, sell, or hold investments
• Best practices in financial review compared to targets and expectations
• Financial performance measurement systems
• Best practices in finding and using key accounting assumptions
• Compare business system to financial results
• Deriving lessons learned from Module two

Best practices in annual reports, footnotes, and corporate governance

• Best practices in annual reports using GAAP, IFRS, or other standards
• Role of exchange commissions and social policy
• Best practices in reconciling accounting standards and reporting
• Best practices in examining corporate governance and shareholder value as well as stakeholder value
• Benchmarking external reviews, industry reports, and analyst reports
• Best practices in boards of directors and their move to financial literacy
• Benchmarking shareholder value measures
• Deriving lessons learned from Module three

Best practices in industry / financial analysis and balancing the scorecard

• Best practices in asking financial managers to guide the understanding of an industry sector with ratios and other financial statements
• Benchmarking treasury management – cash, FOREX, working capital, and CAPEX
• Best practices in controllership – planning, control, costing, and profitability
• Benchmarking value creation from the controllership function
• Finding best practices in non-financial inputs to financial statements
• Learning best practices for the cash to capital to cash (Karl Marx) and how to leave an industry sector
• Activity based costing, time-based costing, and competence based costing and financial analysis
• Deriving lessons learned from Module 4

Best practices in net present value thinking and next generation financial modeling

• Best practices in NPV as the ultimate decision criterion
• Benchmarking the use of real options as a next generation best practice
• Presenting and communicating to executive audiences the best practices in finance and accounting
• Demonstrating next generation model building
• Challenging the finance function to best practices
• What applications of lessons learned in Best Practices in Finance and
• Accounting are applicable in your company and in your markets
• What personal learning plans have been made to continue Best Practices in Finance and Accounting