Accounting, Decision Making, and Financial Communication

Objective:

The Accounting, Decision Making & Financial Communication Course will enable participants to:

• Prepare the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement
• Distinguish clearly between profit and cash flow
• Analyse cost behaviour and assess its impact on product or service costing
• Apply accounting techniques to improve performance and profitability
• Develop functional and departmental budgets aligned with organisational plans

Content:

Introduction to Accounting

• The importance of accounting information
• The role of the Finance Function
• The accounting equation and financial accounting systems
• Recording facts and applying judgement
• Preparing the Income Statement and Balance Sheet
• Accounting principles and accounting standards

Accounting Reports

• The format and contents of the Income Statement
• The format and contents of the Balance Sheet
• The effect of depreciation and impairment on profit
• Identifying and valuing inventory
• Preparing the Cash Flow Statement
• The importance of cash flow in business

Management Accounting for Control and Decision-Making

• Collecting and analyzing costs
• The structure of direct and indirect costs
• Dealing with overheads – absorption costing or ABC?
• Cost-Volume-Profit and break even analysis
• Decision making – make or buy
• Decision making – the effect of limiting factors

Communicating the Plan through Budgeting

• Corporate planning and corporate objectives implemented through budgeting
• The budgeting process and timescale
• Sales budget forecasting techniques
• Cascading the budgets across the whole business
• Preparing functional budgets and the cash budget
• Budgeting principles, methodologies and applications

Measuring Performance to Inform Decision Making

• Monthly management reporting
• Setting and using standards
• Identifying and calculating variances
• Operating and planning variances – who is responsible?
• Measuring responsibility center performance, ROI, RI, and EVA
• Non-financial performance – the Balanced Scorecard