DAY 1:

• The questions a Profit and Loss Account helps you answer compared with those a Balance Sheet addresses.
• Focusing on the Profit & Loss Account we explain the key differences in:
  • Appearance (Management Accounts v Statutory Accounts)
  • Definition (Variable Costs v Fixed Costs)
  • Content (Where the numbers come from including Cash v Non-Cash Items).
• We explain Sales, Cost of Sales, Gross Profit and Overheads and the key relationships between them.
• Why focussing on the top-line and the bottom-line won't tell you what you need to know.
• How to work out the sales you need before you make any money (and if we have your numbers we do this calculation for you).
• Ideally with reference to your own figures we show you how you can derive some benchmark profit targets.
• In simple terms, we explain other profit measures and ratios (including the odd sounding acronym EBITDA).

Clients typically find it highly illuminating and it often prompts immediate changes in their businesses

• After explaining its format and terminology, we ensure you understand what a Balance Sheet doesn't tell you (as well as what it does).
• We show you how the Balance Sheet helps you measure the strength of your business.
• Strong balance sheet v Weak balance sheet - a transparent format to help you tell them apart. And if we have them, we show you what your balance sheet looks like using this approach.
• The surprisingly true nature of Assets and Liabilities and the strategic implications.
• Why you need to be wary of traditional balance sheet ratios.

Proves somewhat of a 'Eureka' moment - even for those who previously felt they understood balance sheets. And far from an academic exercise, it often has a profound impact on decisions made back in the business.

• The key elements that determine if your business is likely to create cash or absorb it (and worst case: run out of it).
• Get the relationship between these numbers right and savvy lenders will tell you 'you are home and dry'. We show you why.
• Can you be profitable and run out of cash? Can you be loss-making and survive? All is revealed.... Strategically invaluable.
• How and why profit differs to cash and how this shows up in the numbers (or not).

Shows how the key elements of what we have covered combine to create cash flow strength or weakness and what you can do to influence the outcome.

DAY 2:

• The 'quickstart' route to finding more profit.
• How changes in top-line sales feed through to the bottom-line (or not) as the case may be (and if we use your figures we review the implications for you).
• How to assess the scope to cut costs.
• In the face of changing costs, we show you how to calculate their impact on the business and nullify their effect.
• Some invaluable tools to help you secure better outcomes in negotiations with customers.
• Sales promotion basics.
• Margins - common sources of margin erosion and the strategies and systems to ensure you earn what you should.

Clients who have been conditioned to think simply in terms of more sales & lower costs find a knowledge of these relationships particularly valuable.

• Pricing: margins v mark-ups and (where relevant) the issues associated with Overhead Recovery (aka absorption costing).
• Time-based v Transaction-based businesses and their respective risks.
• Key benchmarks for deciding whether to accept or reject work at a given price.
• Ideas about how to structure, stratify, tweak, re-design or add to existing product and/or service offerings to outwit the competition and enhance the sales mix..

Rather than be constrained by profit margin targets, clients are often surprised at how pricing and different approaches to their market can prove a source of real competitive advantage.

• Budgeting fundamentals (what the respective terms mean and how they apply to you):
  • Budgets v Cash Flow
  • Budgets v Forecasts
  • Budget v Actual.
• Typical budgetng issues (that can make even simple budgets unsound) and how to address them.
• Where to start to create a simple but soundly based Profit & Loss Account budget.
• Other budget-related terminology:
  • Top-down v Bottom-Up
  • Cost Centres v Profit Centres.

How to create a budget that has the best chance of giving you the right answers.

• Management Accounts:
  • How to get something meaningful from Finance
  • The failings of conventional management accounts - why a printout from the accounts package isn't enough
  • What you need to see v What you can comfortably do without.
• Are you waiting 3+ weeks for last months management accounts? If so we might have some suggestions...
• How your financial management priorities should change if times are tough or if the going is easy.
• Poor book-keeping is rife. At best it renders your financial information worthless. At worst, unchecked, it can bring a business to its knees. So while you rightly want to leave the book-keeping to someone else, how can you spot things going awry quickly?
• 'Trust is everything.' Maybe but don't make fraud easy. What are the key financial controls you should have in place? How would you spot something odd in the books?

Clients are surprised by the scope for improving their financial management information and controls for want of little extra effort.

• Common sense investment appraisal - simple steps to help get the right answers without getting bogged down in complex calculations.
• What typically goes wrong? What separates the successes from the failures?
• Popular methods used to evaluate proposals and investments (PayBack, Rate of Return, NPV, IRR etc). Do these really tell you what you need to know?

We look beyond the textbook principles to understand the practical issues.

+ You Get ... FREE Comprehensive Manual & Case Study Pack

Session-by-session notes each complete with key slides So you can focus more time on what is being said With less need for you to make notes Includes your company's numbers (if you choose to include them in your training) Separate Case Study pack with calculations we work through during the training

+ Plus! FREE Bonus E-Book

Classifying costs correctly is an area we typically find people have previously paid little attention to. In the training you will understand why it's important and how it impacts financial strategy. We walk you through how you tell if an expense is a Cost of Sales or Overhead item. But it's often not 'black and white'. So you will find lots of examples showing you how to deal with the practical difficulties you might encounter.

+ Plus! Access To 5 FREE Calculation Tools

Using Even ONE Of These Tools Just ONCE Could Instantly Recoup The Cost Of Your Course! Calculations that have helped clients we have worked with solve real day-to-day problems and reproduced for you as a series of online templates: How changes in price impact the volume you need to sell – often surprising! Handy % Mark-Up to Gross Margin % convertor – avoid a classic pricing mistake! Extra sales needed to mitigate the impact of rising costs Among others...

+ Plus! Our Invaluable FREE 21-Day Post-Course Support

So if:

• You encounter practical difficulties when you try to apply what you have learned; or
• Something that made sense at the time we covered it but subsequently doesn't;

You can contact us via telephone or e-mail and we will do our very best to help resolve the issues.

Course Prices

	Great value for 1 person with more than 10% OFF for smaller businesses
	For each additional person
	For each additional person over and above 5 on the same course
	Check out the details on the subsidy while it lasts

Risk Free

We fully stand by our training:

Spring 2010 ... Even More Bottom Line Impact

If you secure dates by booking now, for a limited time only, we will throw in access to 5 additional calculation tools absolutely FREE!

More calculation tools that past clients have benefitted from made available to you in a series of online templates: What to do if a customer offers you more business but wants cheaper prices Find out the difference it would make if customers paid what they owed one day quicker Among others...

So a final reminder:

This uncompromising customised approach to financial training is not for everyone of course.

Some will prefer the anonymity of a standard open course. They will be happy if they can 'tick the financial training box in their development plan' and feel textbook financial understanding will do them fine.  Nothing wrong with that.

But if what we offer is right for you, the chances are you will be:

• Someone who appreciates how a knowledge of how the financial side fits together can benefit your business and/or career.
• Keen to put this understanding to use in your work or business.
• Attracted by a customised approach that offers you the option to see your numbers from a different perspective at a price not dissimilar to those charged by some competitors for their open courses.
• Conscious of the benefits of inviting other directors to take part in this training (and the savings on offer to help facilitate this).
• Reassured by our risk-free Guarantee that means we would have a lot to lose if we were to 'sell' a course that proved unsuitable. Try asking other training providers about their policy to refund your tuition costs if you don't learn anything new of practical value.
• And finally, you will probably be looking forward to applying the calculation tools and the contents of the e-book to benefit your work and improve your business to see just how quickly you can recoup the cost and time invested in the course!