Financial Savviness for the Modern Non-Finance Professionals

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Description

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Increasingly, non-finance managers and professionals in every functional area are seeing the need to understand the principles of accounting and finance to improve the effectiveness of their operations and strategy. To be able to understand financial reports and fundamental calculations are crucial skills to acquire as financial data are often used to make sound business decisions.

Financial statements can be very informative. At the same time, they can also be quite meaningless and even misleading, depending on whether one is able to read them beyond the figures shown. This programme is designed specifically to give you a practical understanding of today's accounting and finance terminologies, and empower you to apply financial management tools and techniques with confidence.

Practical examples and case studies (using both listed and non-listed companies) will be used to reinforce learning and understanding.

Programme Outline

Day 1

Financial statements

• The different types of financial statements
  • Statement of financial position (Balance Sheet)
  • Income Statement (Profit & Loss Statement)
  • Cash Flow Statement
  • Appreciating the Uses and Limitations of Financial Statements
    • What they show
    • What they do not show

The Annual Report

• How and where to look for key information
• How to identify the information you need efficiently and effectively
• How to interpret annual reports and gain the maximum mileage from them

The Balance Sheet

• Mastering the common accounting terminology and concepts
• Using it to understand business fundamentals
• Key factors to manage well to drive business success
• Measuring and Interpreting a company’s financial strength
  • Understanding how the business is financed
  • Deciphering the operating cycle and the cash conversion cycle of the business
  • How do you identify a “bankrupt” company?
  • Case Study : Learning how to interpret financial strength of a balance sheet using a real case study

Profit & Loss Statement

• Identifying the items that make a business profitable
• Understanding the differences between fixed cost and variable cost for the business
  • Understanding the nature of these costs and how they increase your profitability
  • Appreciating the impact of depreciation and interest on cash flow and grasp the meaning of EBIT, amortization etc.

Quiz

Day 2

Cash-Flow Statement

• Identifying where the main source of cash is
  • Is it from operating activities as a sustainable source or from investing activities or from financing activities
  • Using cash flow projections and learn about costing as a management tool
  • From the concept of cash flow, understand what is time value of money

Qualitative analysis - establishing how reliable the statements are

Quantitative / ratio analysis ( of key financial performance indicators)

• Important ratios : Profitability, Efficiency, Liquidity, Gearing
• Calculating and Interpreting the ratios
• Comparing the ratios ; rule of thumb, trend analysis, industry comparison
• Grasping the concept of shareholders’ value, other people’s money and the average cost of money
• Appreciating the impact of borrowing/gearing on the average cost of doing business.
• Looking out for warning signs of over-gearing and cash flow problems

Capital budgeting using tools based on time value of money.

Project appraisal methods in decision making ( To decide whether to buy / invest or to lease instead)

• Net present value
• Internal rate of return
• Payback period.

Case studies using non-listed and listed companies

Participants are encouraged to bring along their calculators for this workshop.

What you will learn

At the end of this workshop, you will:

• Know how to ask the right questions about a company's financials, and assess its profitability and financial health with financial ratios analysis
• Learn how to manage the company’s cash flow and working capital, mitigate the risks, increase profitability using leverage and make better business decisions
• Understand what drives budgeting numbers, and how to project the future performance of a company using quantitative and qualitative factors
• Be equipped with sufficient financial knowledge for direct application to the evaluation of business performance.
• Gain increased confidence in analysing and interpreting financial statements for the purposes of budgeting, costing and reporting.

Expert Speaker

Koh Siew Min
CFA , CA ( Singapore )

Siew Min provides consultancy and training to banks, MNCs and management institutions in the Asia-Pacific region. She advises entrepreneurs and companies on financial management and restructuring, and also prepares companies for listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange, working closely with merchant banks that underwrite the listing of equities.

She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the NUS Business School , teaching the module on Financial Statement Analysis in the NUS MBA Programme. Being effectively bilingual in English and Chinese, Siew Min conducts programs in Mandarin for participants from China in a variety of banking subjects. She brings to her training programmes a unique blend of academia and practical industry experience in banking and finance gleaned from years of research, teaching and business management in the sector.