Finance for Non Financial Managers
Register your interest now and full details will follow

The Aim: to provide delegates (a) with an overview of the accounting function in their organisation and (b) with practical examples of how they can use financial information to help them with their own work.
Who Should Attend: this course is aimed at middle and senior managers of small and medium sized enterprises whether from the manufacturing or the service sector and from any industry, trade or profession.
The Training Method: The course is a mixture of lectures, discussion and easily understood case studies. Workshop sessions are used to experiment with and cement the lessons learned. Copies of the training material are provided.
In parts of the course we will make use of a variety of Excel spreadsheets for demonstration; but experience of Excel is not essential.
The Learning Outcomes: by the end of this course, delegates will

1. be familiar with the layout and content of the major accounting reports:
2. appreciate the shortcomings of financial reporting and investigate ways of overcoming such shortcomings
3. use ratio analysis to appreciate how to assess the performance of an organisation, including their own
4. investigate the cost and management accounting structure of their organisation
5. use basic cost and management accounting techniques to evaluate business decisions
6. carry out break even analysis on live accounting data
7. appreciate the need for and the application of budgeting and budgetary control

1 be familiar with the layout and content of the major accounting reports:

1. profit and loss account
2. balance sheet
3. cash flow statement

2 appreciate the shortcomings of financial reporting and investigate ways of overcoming such shortcomings

3 use ratio analysis to appreciate how to assess the performance of an organisation, including their own

4 investigate the cost and management accounting structure of their organisation

1. differences between financial and management accounting
2. fixed, variable and semi variable costs
3. how to find out whether a cost is fixed, variable, semi variable … or something else!
4. accounting for materials, labour and overheads
5. overview of job, batch, process, service and contract costing

5 use basic cost and management accounting techniques to evaluate business decisions

1. traditional cost accounting
2. activity based costing
3. target costing
4. kaizen costing

6 carry out break even analysis on live accounting data

1. application of cost behaviour analysis
2. break even calculations and graphs
3. application to live company data

7 appreciate the need for and the application of budgeting and budgetary control

1. what budgeting is and the benefits of it
2. applicability of budgeting and budgetary control
3. the budgetary process including the limiting factor and the interrelationships of budgets
4. the preparation of budgets, including cash budgeting
5. some of the problems with traditional budgeting and budgetary control
6. alternative budgeting systems

1. activity based budgeting
2. contingency budgeting
3. flexible budgeting

Fee: £495 per delegate
Dates: TBA

The Presenter: Duncan Williamson has presented many such training programmes both to accountants and non accountants and brings with him experience of SMEs from the UK, Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Duncan has spent many years both working as an accountant in manufacturing industry and in preparing and presenting training workshops, teaching in Universities and Business Schools, preparing teaching/learning materials, running his own web site … the quality of Duncan’s work is very high and delegates to this seminar will come to appreciate that they will need more of the same!

Course Materials: All course materials have been specially put together for this course and will include materials that have never been used anywhere else! Delegates will receive a pack of materials on registration with additional materials being handed out as appropriate during the course. Materials will include accounting materials relating to SMEs that Duncan has worked with together with accounting information from other sources such as public sources and materials that Duncan has developed himself.
During the day Duncan will demonstrate a relatively simple spreadsheet model of a live product cost system that can be adapted for use in just about any business. Duncan has used this spreadsheet model in almost 100 SMEs to date and it is particularly useful for non financial managers.

Contact Name: Duncan Williamson
Company Name: duncanwil.co.uk
email: duncan@duncanwil.co.uk
Telephone: 0780 300 6558
Website: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/train
Course Location: UK ... overseas by negotiation
Course Date: TBA
Course Time: 09:30 – 17:00
Fees: £495 per delegate