Introduction
Our approach to financial awareness training is to make it engaging and fun whilst you learn. One of the most common comments during and after our finance training is something like ‘that was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be.’
The session is structured around four quarters of a year.
Each quarter focuses on one or two key financial aspects such as Profit & Loss, budgeting, accruals or whatever you decide. Each quarter starts with an explanation of these elements. An example is used for illustration. There are questions and answers and then we have some examples for the participants to explore. After this, we go into the business game.
Working in teams they must use what they have learned in the quarter. They do this by applying their learning to the business simulation which might mean budgeting for the next quarter or preparing a profit and loss statement on what they have achieved so far.
The following gives more detail on our approach to finance for non-finance managers training, but please call us to discuss your specific needs.
Course Objective of Financial Awareness
This will depend on the specific goals you have for your finance training, but here are some typical learning outcomes:
- Participants gain an understanding of what income statements / P&L statements and balance sheets are and what they do.
- An appreciation of budgeting, why accuracy is important and how budgeting works for their team and the wider organization.
- A better understanding of accruals, what they are and why they are important.
- How different departments interact financially and the inter-dependencies; finance with sales, finance with marketing, finance with HR, sales and marketing.
- Participants gain an understanding of what income statements / P&L statements and balance sheets are and what they do.
Who Should Attend
Some of the different roles that have attended our finance training:
- Marketing Managers
- HR Managers
- Sales Managers
- IT Managers
- Regulatory Managers
- Safety Managers
- Project Managers
- Procurement Managers
- Business Development Managers
Course Outlines of Financial Awareness
Day 1
- Introduction & objectives of the session
- How the session & the business game works
Day 2
- Profit & Loss explained & illustrated
- The importance of invoice coding
- Flow chart of the purchasing process from order to payment
- Monitoring of actual costs v budget
- Finance game in teams
- Review of learning
Day 3
- Balance sheet explained & illustrated
- Cash flow
- Finance game in teams
- Review of learning
Day 4
- Budgeting principles
- Implications of budget shortfalls & overspends
- Finance game in teams
- Review of learning
Day 5
- Working with the finance department
- Accurate completion of purchase orders
- Notification of commitments/accruals
- Finance game in teams
- Review of learning
- Summary & personal actions
