Accounting can be simple: Don’t avoid jobs that contain It

You may be very good at Mathematics at school or maybe not too good but you can still work in accounts department or at least incorporate a small amount of accounting in your role. Many PA's and Office Managers find themselves in exactly this position. The key is being accurate and methodical; also a keen eye for detail is vital for accounting.

 

When we start our first job, we all have to manage our personal finances which we do satisfactorily whether we are knowledgeable in bookkeeping or not. Maybe we had the help and advice from our parents, but we soon showed our independence by taking over this task. The same principles will apply to working with accounts, albeit on a more formal and often larger scale. Therefore it is important that you are not daunted by the prospect of working in accounting or incorporating this areas into your role.

The Core Of Bookkeeping / Accounting

In essence you are recording financial transactions. The services or products bought by your company will need to be paid for, likewise the sale of items need to be recorded into the financial system. In essence this is the process going on within a financial system, but it often gains a greater level of complexity. 

Whether you plan to work with computerised accounts or not, you will need to have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of bookkeeping. This includes recognising, accepting, creating and allocating invoices and credit notes; recording entries accurately in the appropriate accounts; posting entries to relevant ledgers; reconciling the bank account and petty cash. With a good understanding of these, you then move on to preparing the Trial Balance, Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and making year-end adjustments.

All of this may sound complicated, but it can be covered in relativity short-term training courses.

Accounts reflect the economic reality of a company in terms of what they owe and own. It most importantly shows how much of a profit or loss is being made too. Accounts will need to pursue any client who is late in paying or ignores this function. The information enables managers to make decision to drive the business.

So you can see how important the accounts department is to any organisation. Of course there is room for promotion in this department. Incorporating accounts into your existing role with also provide scope for promotion. Here you will need a deeper understanding of finance, working capital, financial reporting, categorising costs, trading margins etc. Ideally a good quality course CLICK HERE in these fields will give you a deeper understanding of the subject. 

 

What is Management Training? How To Manage High Performing Employees

In your professional life, you are likely to have taken many training courses on technical aspects of your careers. There may be finance courses or specific technical training; all of these types of training have one thing in common. These training courses can be clearly defined and once you have taken on board an agreed level of knowledge, you will be accredited or qualified.

Management courses are very different as it equips you to deal with personal situations, which have numerous scenarios. Furthermore, dealing with personalities means that approaches will need to vary to suit the needs of others. This means that management training is continuous process of learning and improving.

One aspect of Management which is very difficult to master is managing your team to get the highest possible performance.

Here is a guide of how to organise and guide your team to meet the needs of the team and company.

When you start running your team, you need to identify the best opportunities to succeed and match them to the needs and abilities of people.

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· Schedule one-on-one meetings to gain an appreciation of the work carried out by the individual and understand their attributes and development points.

· As you become familiar with your team, you should try to develop personalised development plans on an individual basis. From here you can develop a training needs schedule.

· The Development plan needs to be combined for your team, so you can see if there is a specific need for the team, at a high level. You can use this to create mass training programmes, if there is a team level deficiency.

· You will need to follow the development plan and how the employees respond to it. Be aware that the development plan’s focus may not meet the personal aspirations and cause a lack in motivation.

· If you feel that people are not so keen on your plan you should try to discuss any issues with them. Then you should find out what training they desire and try to reformulate a more motivating plan.

· Always bear in mind that you will only get the most out of your people, if you ensure that they are fully motivated. It is important that your team feels that their goals and the goals of the organisation are in sync, or they may start to feel reluctant to pull in the direction of the organisation.

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Administration Courses

The Development of Modern Management Courses

As most students of Management Theory know, Douglas McGregor, a pioneering American social scientist, first proposed his X-Y theory of management style in his popular early 60’s book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'.

Theory X and Y and Management Courses

Theory X and theory Y form a basis on many modern Leadership Courses and are still highly respected in the area of management and motivation. Whilst up to date work questioned the rigidity of the model, McGregor's two theories remain good basic principles from which to develop creative management styles and techniques. Indeed McGregor remains central to organisational development, and to improving related culture.

Reading into his original work it is easy to see that McGregor was emotionally opposed to the theory X authoritarian style and used quite strong terms to describe the recognisable traits of these managers and their style.


McGregor's Impact on Management Theory

Theory Y, at the time, was a breath of fresh air and many of its proponents could see no limit to the benefits of its implementation. It was the beginning of a new type of management theory, which encouraged self worth and collaboration with workers.

Many large corporations to this day are heavily structured around the fundamentals of this democratic and delegation focused style and in some cases quite fixed in its implementation. However, nowadays few corprorations would follow McGregor, but his influence is great, as it can be said that he started the more democratic approaches the leadership style.

Democratic Schools of Thought

Management Training will often include McGregor in its syllabus, but the more complex and modern theories, such as Maslow or Herzberg are likely to receive more focus.

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Maslow actually developed his theories in the 1950s, but they are extremely popular to this day. Maslow argued that there was a pyramid of needs, which started with the basic physiological needs of food, employment, security for a worker. They then progressed through to gaining responsibility, showing creativity and gaining confidence in their own ability. This theory broke down into more detail the psychological needs of a worker and helped manager's focus on more collaborative styles of management. Meanwhile, training has focused on more psychological and behavioural factors, with NLP Courses, Communications Courses, Coaching as a Manager and much more.

Overall Impact

The overall impact on modern businesses is huge, as it has led to many business adopting flat structured organisations with democratic and collaborative approaches to management. This can be far more rewarding that the traditional top down companies.

An Outline of the Different Types of Soft Skills and Management Training

Interpersonal skills are the essential asset in order to further your career in any organisation, whether in the public sector, commerce or other. Companies whether large or small, need this fundamental skill in order to meet their targets and be successful. They often offer soft skills training courses either in the work place or sign up staff on these courses offered by training companies. Courses offered to all staff can focus mainly on team working. A sales representative will need to know how to entice, negotiate and make that sale to a wide range of personalities; they need to make efficient use of their time with the potential customer and also handle rejection. This training is not only geared for the sales people but also invaluable to the manager, PA, secretary, administrator, waiters in fact all walks of life. These specialist roles with unique skill sets are beneficial to all. Team working and leadership skills are the most popular courses sought after. Leadership and management skills are generally more advantageous to management.

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Management courses often include leadership theories of X and Y management styles, that is Maslow and Herzberg theories. This will include how to build appropriate relationships with staff in order for them to have job satisfaction, motivate them, empathise and meet their needs. The focal point is mainly on developing working relationships and how to get the most out of these relationships.

The other main areas of Management Courses are where the focus is on how to lead and act on your own initiative. This is an important part as it ensures that the candidate observes and focuses on the target and is then able to succeed in achieving these objectives.

Evolution of Management Training Courses

Management and leadership training courses have changed dramatically over the years. The earlier management courses focused on having two distinct types of staff:

1. Those who need to be told what to do and are disciplined; this led to staff not being able to think for themselves and be creative.
2. The other type is for staff who needs to be given the opportunity to develop.

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The general theme was oppressive. This led to a more independent school of thought developing in the 80s and later. Here there was more importance on consulting with employees and brainstorming, in order to give them a degree of self worth and involvement with the staff. This type of management theory is the dominant theme in most management training. 

Managerial personality is a noteworthy determinant. It may vary with companies as the atmosphere can be either democratic or autocratic. Finally, certain types of job will require a suitable approach and as a result specific industries may have different cultures.

Finance Training for Non-Financial Managers and Professionals

Businesses are increasingly expecting management and professional staff to have a good understanding of finance. People are expected to understand how to be profitable. You will be increasingly expected to understand your departmental financial targets, budgetary constraints and handle meetings with accountants.

I am a Manager or Professional, but I lack financial knowledge

There is no shame in lacking financial knowledge, as your expertise will be in the business area that you are already involved in. Nevertheless, you should gain financial knowledge and understanding in order to handle any financial issues.

“Accountancy qualifications take years, I need a fast route”

What do I need to know?

That cannot be accurately answered as everyone’s needs and background knowledge is different. However, the typical Finance for Non-Financial Managers Course will cover the majority of what you need. You will covers all components of the Financial Accounts; Profit and Loss, Balance Sheets and Cash Flow. This is an important basis of the training, but the important part that will be covered in how to interpret and analyse financial statements. You will also cover budgets and how you measure your performance. These are hugely important skills, but only require people to have an overview understanding of finance.

People in your position have no need to go on a training course for Accountants, because you don’t need to know how to produce financial documents.

Example of how understanding Financial Information can help me?
 
Here is one example; a factory will show Sales Revenue and direct manufacturing costs next to one another. Below these items is the Gross Profit from the manufacture and sale of the product. An Operations Manager becomes concerned that Gross Profit is going down, so looking at this detail he can see that the cause is increasing direct costs. This will indicate to the business managers whether they need to have a price increase, in order to increase revenue. If the cost is increasing and the sales revenues are not, this may indicate to the manager that it will be necessary to increase the price and maintain his profit level.

This is one simple example, but there are countless others. The key is your knowledge will help you make informed business decisions and understand financial dialogues with accountants.

How long will the training course take?

These finance for non-financial managers courses are generally intense and will aim to be completed in 2-3 days. They are designed for people who need to be able to function with finance but not for people looking for careers in the subject. Nevertheless, the course is interesting and many managers decide to take follow up investments and financial markets training, so they can understand how to manage the company or their personal investments.

What is Management Training and why is it needed to succeed?

Soft skills are very important to any successful professional, especially as you get more senior. The more senior that you become, the more people you will encounter and in different types of relationships. You will have direct reports that you will need to manage, coach and delegate effectively to, whilst managing relationships with clients, other managers and more senior management. Your success will often be measured on the strength of your personal relationships, so it is important that you have good interpersonal skills.

The importance of soft skills and management training is so great that most large corporations will deliver a series of management training courses to their staff. Some use in-house trainers and others use private specialists.

All staff should be aware of the importance of this type of training. Anyone who wants to progress will need to develop this skills sets o don’t think that it does not apply to you if you aren’t yet management. Non-managerial staff should focus on the team-working aspects, influencing others, negotiating and more. The coaching of direct reports and delegation skills may not be so relevant.

 

Management Theories

In the 60s and 70s, management training courses started to become more popular, as companies became more aware of people skills rather than just technical skills. Managers were taught traditional theories such as; Theory X and Y, Maslow and Herzberg. These schools of thought were very top down and more autocratic. However, over the years the theories have developed.

More democratic schools of thought overtook the autocratic approach. The emphasis shifted to consulting with employees and developing their sense of self worth and inclusion.

This shift meant that the method of training changed from formal classroom training in theories, which was very traditional. The shift was towards interactive and experiential classes, where participants would use practical exercises to increase their learning and there was little classroom learning at all.

 

 

What is good training?

Management Training Courses need to be highly interactive and practical in order to consolidate and new skills with real-life scenarios. Ideally, the course should feel like a memorable experience, where participants can leave the class clearly identifying any new skills that they have learned. Classes that are not engaging are unlikely to have a lasting effect.

Management Training Course