Financial Management Essentials

The Financial Management Essentials short course provides a practical introduction to the fundamentals of finance, helping you understand financial statements and the operational messages that can be derived from financial information.

Across 10 weekly evening online classes, you’ll explore financial and performance ratios, sales pricing, costing, interest and borrowing, taxation, investment, performance measurement, risk mitigation and hedge fund operations. You’ll also develop your understanding of how financial information can be used to support business management and decision-making.

The course is designed to help you apply the knowledge and skills developed in class directly to your professional and personal financial decision-making. Practical exercises and Excel models will help you develop skills that you can continue to use beyond the course.

Who is it for?

This course is ideal for middle to senior managers from disciplines other than finance, as well as SME owners and consultants with commercial or operational experience who want to develop their financial knowledge and management skills.

Timetable

The Financial Management Essentials evening course takes place once a week for 10 weeks.

City St George’s Short Courses follow the academic year, delivering courses over three terms. These include:

• Autumn - October
• Spring - January
• Summer - April

Benefits

• Develop practical financial management skills you can apply to business and personal financial decisions.
• Understand financial statements, ratios and other financial information to support better business decision-making.
• Explore pricing, costing, investment, funding, taxation, budgeting and performance measurement.
• Learn through practical online classes, exercises and Excel models that you can continue to use after the course.
• Learn from an experienced practitioner and gain a City St George’s, University of London certificate.

Throughout the Financial Management Essentials short course, you will:

• Understand the fundamental principles, terminology and building blocks of financial control.
• Understand the main financial statements, how they relate to one another and how they can be used as management information.
• Understand the role of budgeting as a planning and control tool.
• Recognise different types of costs and how they can be controlled.
• Differentiate between cash flow, profit and net worth.
• Understand the financial implications of business plans and decisions.

Topics covered :

Week 1 – Finance Function: What, Why and How

• Control and regulatory needs
• The finance function and competitive advantage
• Performance and outlook health checks
• EasyJet performance analysis (homework)

Week 2 – Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

• Contents, purpose and use of the main financial statements
• How the statements link together, using a worked classroom example

Week 3 – Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

• Understanding the messages conveyed by financial figures
• Using financial information to influence operations
• Jeanette’s Café exercise (homework)
• Excel model provided for participants to keep and use

Week 4 – Sales, Costs, Costing Systems and VAT

• Pricing, quantity, margins and mix
• Fixed and variable costs and break-even analysis
• Costing systems, including ABC/ABM, Kanban, Kaizen and Six Sigma
• VAT: what, why and how
• Completing a VAT return (classroom exercise)

Week 5 – Interest, Capital, Gearing and Funding

• APR and AER: what, why and how
• Efficient capital management
• Risk, inflation and reward
• Sources of finance and factors influencing the cost of finance, including WACC
• Excel model classroom exercise and model to keep and use

Week 6 – Investment Returns and Risk, Errors and Fraud

• DCF, IRR, payback and risk
• Excel model classroom exercise and model to keep and use
• Types, prevention and detection of errors and fraud
• Internal controls and internal and external audit

Week 7 – Budgets, Plans and Personal Tax

• Budgeting processes and effectiveness
• Perspectives, target setting and reward
• Calculating tax (classroom exercise)
• Checking your own tax (homework)

Week 8 – Business Valuation and Project Evaluation

• Principles of business valuation
• Valuation when buying and selling businesses
• Due diligence
• Using a more complex Excel model (homework) and model to keep and use

Week 9 – Performance Measurement and Personal Investment

• Financial and non-financial measures and the balanced scorecard
• Ratios and their relative importance
• Portfolio construction and balancing risk
• Hedging and hedge fund operations

Week 10 – Revision

• Revision of topics covered throughout the course
• Maintaining and developing knowledge after the course
• Classroom discussion and feedback

The course builds progressively from foundation knowledge in the early sessions, so you will get the most from the course by attending all 10 classes. Classroom exercises and homework will be set throughout the course to reinforce your learning and help you evaluate your progress.

There is no formal assessment or academic credit. Any assessment is informal and designed to support your learning and help you apply the knowledge gained during the course.

If you attend more than 70% of the classes, you will receive an official City St George’s, University of London certificate of completion. City St George’s Short Courses are not formally accredited.

You should have a basic knowledge of calculations, including percentages and ratios, at no more than GCSE Maths level. Basic Microsoft Excel knowledge is useful. You will also need a calculator or a phone with a calculator function.

English requirements

You will need a good level of spoken and written English to enrol on this course.

• Dyson, J. R. (2003), 6th ed., Accounting for Non-Accounting Students, Pearson.
• Harrison, J. (1989), Finance for the Non-Financial Manager, HarperCollins.
• Siciliano, G. (2002), Finance for the Non-Financial Manager, McGraw Hill Education.
• For those wishing to learn or refresh their business mathematics, Understanding Business Maths, Kaplan Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84710-706-0, may be a useful workbook.