Skills for Finance and Accounting for Office Administrators & Secretaries in the Public Sector

Course Overview:

This program introduces finance and accounting for those who have no prior knowledge of this business area. It is designed to train the participants to support operational and financial processes. Those attending this course will gain a clear understanding of the essential terminology of finance and accounting. They will also learn the principles and techniques of accounting systems through practical examples and exercises.

The overall aim of the program is to ensure that those who attend will be able to perform more effectively and efficiently within the workplace.

Course Objectives:

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

• Appreciate the importance of the accounting and finance function, and how it links with every part of the organization, and its suppliers, customers, shareholders, lenders, and society in general
• Understand commonly used finance and accounting terminology thereby allowing them to make a valuable contribution to the workplace in meetings or a supportive role
• Understand the principles of accounting for routine business transactions
• Summaries the results of business transactions over a while, and prepare simple financial statements, including the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement
• Analyze and compare company performance using basic ratios
• Understand how costing and budgeting techniques can help the company to maintain efficiency and profitability
• Acquire skills and knowledge that will help their personal development within the organization
• Become more aware of the major issues facing their business
• Enable them to liaise effectively with line managers and other departments

Course Coverage:

Topic 1: Introduction to Finance and Accounting:

• What is accounting? What is finance?
• What are the major sources of Long-term and Short-term finance?
• What is Financial Accounting?
• What is Management Accounting?
• Simple rules of double-entry bookkeeping that can be applied to all financial transactions
• How to record the things you buy and the things you sell
• How to record business payments and receipts
• What is depreciation? – explanation of the various methods and their impact on profit

Topic 2: The Financial Statements:

• How to prepare basic financial statements – the Income Statement and the Balance Sheet
• The key elements of financial statements are defined and explained
• How is profit calculated?
• The difference between revenue & capital expenditure
• Assets – current and non-current
• Liabilities – current and non-current
• The meaning of working capital
• Company net worth
• Profit or cash – what is the difference?
• Published Annual Reports for stockholders

Topic 3: Basic Evaluation of Financial Statements:

• Why do we need to evaluate financial statements?
• Who are the stakeholders and what are their information needs?
• How to ‘common-size’ financial statements for ease of comparison
• How to calculate accounting ratios
• How to use ratio analysis to assess performance
• Profitability ratios
• Liquidity ratios
• Operating efficiency ratios
• Gearing ratios
• The Cash Flow Cycle and Working Capital
• Valuing a company – Book Value VS Market Value

Unit 4: Introduction to Costing Systems:

• Collecting and analyzing costs
• Types of cost analysis: by type, by location, by behaviour, by purpose
• What are overheads, and how should we analyze them?
• What is the Cost of Production – Marginal and Total Costing explained
• What is inventory, and how does it affect the cost of production?
• Methods of valuing inventory – FIFO, LIFO, and AVCO explained
• Marginal Costing – how costs and profit vary with volume
• How to measure the break-even point and the margin of safety
• What-if Analysis

Unit 5: Budgets:

• Why do we need budgets? – the link between corporate strategy and operations at all levels of the organization
• The benefits & limitations of budgets
• The key features of budgets
• Basic budget forecasting techniques
• How to prepare a departmental budget
• Comparing actual performance with the budget - Variance Analysis
• Do budgets motivate or de-motivate?

Targeted Groups:

• Secretaries
• Office Administrators
• Personal Assistants and Executive Assistants
• Administrative Professionals and Support Staff
• Production and Marketing Professionals
• Anyone wishing to increase or update their awareness and understanding of finance and accounting methods and terminology