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.