Financial Management for Projects & Contracts in the Public Sector

Course Overview

With increasing competition and focus on corporate earnings, project and contract managers are held accountable, not just for achieving technical and scheduling goals, but also for meeting profitability targets and other cost-related measures.

This training course explores the financial metrics that are commonly used and also examines the less frequently thought of the financial impact of typical operating decisions and actions. Building on your competencies, you will examine the inner mechanics of how finance and accounting can impact your project.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course, the participants will be able to:

Communicate more effectively with accounting and financial personnel
Read, understand, and analyze accounting and financial data
Expand your work in project scheduling and cost control to encompass additional financial metrics and tools
Minimize project financial risk
Develop and apply tools for comparing project financial returns
Understand how finance often drives organizational decisions and evaluations of project performance.

Course Content:

Unit 1: Fundamentals of Finance:

Financial accounting concepts
Generally accepted accounting principles
Reading and understanding financial statements
Financial analysis
Managerial Accounting
Business case consideration
Cost vs. revenue
Profitability measures
ROS
ROA/EVA
ROE
IRR
Time value of money
Discounted cash flows
Direct VS indirect costs
Fixed VS variable vs. semi-variable costs
Break-even analysis

Unit 2: Contract Profitability - Pricing:

Pricing strategy and tactics
Profit planning
Cost Estimating
Cost-based pricing
Market-based pricing
Value-based pricing
Profit objective
Market structure
Follow-on business
Risk
Z score

Unit 3: Asset Management - Cash is King:

Cash
Timing of cash flows
Accounts receivable
Inventory
Equipment
Revenue recognition
Financing arrangements

Unit 4: Terms & Conditions (Ts & Cs) - Best Prices:

Value, cost, and risk
Asset-friendly Ts and Cs
Unfavourable Ts and Cs
Metrics to evaluate

Unit 5: Cost Estimating What Works Best:

Cost estimating methods
Planning and scheduling
Making Sense of historical data
Experience curves
Relationship between cost estimating and pricing

Targeted Groups:

Project Managers
Project Management Staff
Project Cost Controllers
Finance Professionals
Contracts Professionals