DAY 1:

• We consider the different ways of evaluating an individual's financial situation and the relative merits of the different approaches you could take.
• Then we scale this up to consider a household.
• And then we move on to consider whether it's appropriate to apply the same thinking to a business.

Brief overview can help provide a context for the subsequent sessions.

• First of all, we compare the Profit & Loss Account with the Balance Sheet (the 2 key financial statements that tell us about the financial state of a business) and explain:
  • The questions each seeks to answer
  • An overview of how the two combine.
• Then, 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. Plus: What you find in it v What you don't).
• The basic Profit & Loss Account structure: Sales, Cost of Sales, Gross Profit and Overheads and the key relationships between them.
• The key Profit & Loss Account calculation that most people are completely unaware of. Subsequently, you might well find you make use of ths day-to-day. Ideally we illustrate this with numbers drawn from your company's numbers.
• Using this approach, you will learn how to assess performance against last month (or last year or budget) and get greater insight into the reasons behind targets being exceeded (or missed) and the implications.
• How Profit & Loss Account performance is conventionally measured and assessed and the associated terminology.

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

• Very few people truly know how to make sense of a balance sheet. But in this session you'll see that, approached in the right way, it can be surprisingly straightforward. Here we explain step by step:
  • Its format and appearance
  • What you find in it (and what you don't)
  • Definitions of the key terms
  • And critically, what it can tell you about a business (and what it can't).
• We show you a simple way to tell a strong balance sheet from a weak one with the aid of our special template. If we build your numbers into the training we show you what your company balance sheet looks like using this approach.
• We highlight the key lines of the balance sheet to focus on, whether in your own business, or that of a key customer or supplier.
• Practical tips for structuring your relationships with customers and suppliers.
• Simple changes to balance sheet reports that dramatically enhance their impact and meaning for non-financial managers.

Session typically proves somewhat of '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.

• How you can help your business create better cash flow.
• How and why profit differs to cash and how this shows up in the numbers (or not).
• Cash flow forecasts / projections and the common (yet critical) mistakes people make.

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:

• We demonstrate why changes in sales can have a significant or negligible impact on bottom-line profit (and ideally we consider this in the context of your business). Has helped many non-financial people we've trained directly influence sales strategy.
• We show you how to make sense of cost cutting. How to quantify the impact on the business and, where appropriate, how to demonstrate the case for more resources.
• Even as a non-financial manager you can still find yourself pressured to find more profit. We show you a surprisingly simple starting point from which to assess the best options and if we include your numbers in the training we'll prepare this for you.
• With many non-financial managers routinely negotiating with customers and suppliers we offer you some invaluable tools to help secure better outcomes.

Clients who have been conditioned to think simply in terms of more sales & lower costs find a knowledge of these relationships gives them access to a whole new level of thinking.

• We highlight the key difference between margins and mark-ups - critical to avoiding innocent but costly mistakes.
• We highlight some important pricing basics and useful benchmarks
• If you have product or service responsibilities, we look at how to structure, tweak, re-design or add to these to create a sound business.

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.

• You don't want to be responsible for losing £50k (and potentially much more) from relying on a credit agency report that proves to be out of sate or just unsound. In this session we show you how to make real sense of statutory (or annual) accounts:
  • What's the real cost of a bad debt? (It won't be what you think)
  • Is it just your customers you need to worry about?
  • What should give you cause for concern?
• With the aid of a specially selected real life set of accounts we take you through a 6-step approach that you can use to get to the bottom of any company's accounts.
• What to do if your key customers or suppliers are exempt from filing full accounts.

Used effectively, these bland-looking reports can offer remarkable insight. It might change your use of credit reference agencies forever.

• We explain the link between budgets and cash flow forecasts.
• We highlight the key issues that contribute to making, even simple budgets, unsound.
• Where to start to create a simple but soundly-based Profit & Loss Account budget.
• How this essentially simple approach can be applied in the context of a larger business with more complex structures. We look at what is meant by:
  • Top-down v Bottom-Up
  • Cost Centres v Profit Centres
  • Budgets v Forecasts.
• How to foresee budget deficits (or excesses) as we look at how best to track Budget v Actual.
• Budgeting issues that typically give rise to friction and how to address them.

Fresh ideas that aim to give your budget the best change of giving you the right answers.

• We look at opportunities to make management accounts easier for non-financial people to engage with and make sense of. (And, if we use your figures in the training we do this focused on your business specifically.)
• If you have cash flow responsibilities in what circumstances would you want to look at cash flow weekly as opposed to monthly?
• If you have profit centre / cost centre responsibilities you might well receive monthly accounting printouts from Finance. We give you a quick overview of how to make sense of what you are likely to find.
• Or you might even be called upon to help Finance sort out mis-postings. If so, you should find this simple overview of the book-keeping associated with customer and supplier transactions, a great help.

Crib-sheet approach offers a pain-free route through an area many (understandably) find confronting.

• How to gauge whether projects / investments are likely to prove worthwhile without getting bogged down in complex investment appraisal.
• What are the key numbers you need for a proposal? Where do you find them and how do you present them in order to create a compelling business case?
• We give you an overview of conventional investment appraisal, the related techniques and measures.

Serves to illustrate the merits of evaluating proposals in terms people are inherently familiar with.

+ 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 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 simply '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:

• Mindful of the confidence and credibility that comes from knowing how the financial side fits together and what this can do for your career.
• Keen to put this understanding into use in your work.
• Attracted by a customised approach that can help you hit the ground running when you get back to the office with the option to build your own company's numbers (confidentially) into the training. (And at a price not dissimilar to those charged by some competitors for their standard open courses).
• Thinking about the benefits (and savings) available from having other colleagues participate in the same training session.
• 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 find the course gives you anything new of practical value.
• And finally, you will probably be looking forward to checking out the calculation tools and the contents of the e-book to see how you can use them to benefit your work and see just how quickly you can recoup the cost and time invested in the course!