Aims of the course:
This course is for you if your answer to one of these questions is Yes:
- Do you interact with financial specialists at work, and want to communicate better with them?
- Are you self-employed, or considering self-employment?
- Are you considering a career or secondment in finance?
Target audience:
This course is for you if your answer to one of these questions is Yes.
1. Do you interact with financial specialists at work, and want to communicate better with them?
2. Are you self-employed, or considering self-employment?
3. Are you considering a career or secondment in finance?
You will benefit most from this course if you have a minimum of 20 hours prior study of finance, or equivalent practical experience. If you don’t already have this level of experience, we recommend that you consider taking 'Essential finance for you', before this course. However this is not a requirement, and you are also most welcome to join this course directly, without any prior studies with the Institute.
Learning outcomes:
As a result of the course, within the constraints of the time available, students should be able to:
- Enjoy collaborating with finance colleagues and specialist financial advisors
- Appreciate and improve the financial dimensions of any self-employed work they do
- Learn whether a secondment or career in finance likely to be enjoyable for them
Course content overview:
As a result of the course, participants should be able to understand and work with the financial aspirations and concerns of their employers, investors, customers and suppliers, including both internal and external financial considerations and trade-offs.
Topics will include:
- Financial reporting and accounts
- Financial planning and forecasting
- Making friends with spreadsheets
- Financial decision making
- Getting your proposals considered
- Next steps, including personal actions arising and accountability for doing them
Schedule:
Orientation Week: 4-10 January 2021
By studying this week the students should have:
- Become familiar with navigating around the VLE and from VLE to links and back
- Tested their ability to access files and the web conferencing software and sorted out any problems with the help of the eLearning Helpdesk
- Learnt how to look for, assess and reference internet resources
- Used forums to introduce themselves to other students
- Contributed to a discussion forum to introduce themselves to other students and discuss why they are interested in the course, what they hope to get out their studies, and also to respond to any News items sent out on behalf of tutor.
Teaching Weeks: 11 January-14 February 2021
Week 1 - Financial reporting and accounts
Participants will gain a sound appreciation of the meaning and practicalities of financial reporting and accounts, together with its key terminology and conventions. By studying this week the students should have:
- Understood the key conventions of the five primary financial statements in the financial reports of a large organisation, and the links between them.
- Appreciated and applied the important accounting concepts of recognition, disclosure, depreciation, and amortisation.
- Understood and worked with accruals, provisions, debtors, creditors, and other receivables and payables.
- Attempted the related self assessment quiz questions on the VLE.
- Contributed constructively to the related discussions on the VLE.
Week 2 - Financial planning and forecasting
Participants will grasp the fundamental importance of financial planning and forecasting, via mini-case studies. By studying this week the students should have:
- Understood the key conventions of budgets, forecasts and variance analysis, including examples of favourable and adverse variances.
- Understood and applied the concepts of gross and net profit, EBITDA, direct and indirect costs, and contribution.
- Attempted the related self assessment quiz questions on the VLE.
- Contributed constructively to the related discussions on the VLE.
Week 3 - Making friends with spreadsheets: This week we'll aim to improve the reliability and speed of your financial modelling work to support and deepen understanding of financial reporting, forecasting and decision making. By studying this week the students should have:
- Appreciated the enormous potential of Excel to increase the speed, reliability and presentation of financial analysis.
- Understood the fundamental importance of structuring Excel workbooks.
- Learned the most important of Excel’s native functionality.
- Understood the important differences between navigation, selection and editing.
- Used the keyboard when appropriate, in place of the mouse.
- Attempted the related self assessment quiz questions on the VLE.
- Contributed constructively to the related discussions on the VLE.
Week 4 - Financial decision making
Participants will gain comfort and confidence with the practice and theory of financial decision making. By studying this week the students should have:
- Appreciated the meaning and importance of production and pricing decisions, and scarce resource analysis.
- Understood and applied payback and discounted cash flow analysis.
- Integrated this understanding with their work in Weeks 1, 2 and 3.
- Attempted the related self assessment quiz questions on the VLE.
- Contributed constructively to the related discussions on the VLE.
Week 5 - Getting your proposals considered
This week we'll appreciate why and how financial decision makers require proposals to be presented for consideration, and will apply this understanding in a self-chosen case study. By studying this week the students should have:
- Understood the reasons why financial decision makers need particular information about operational proposals, presented in conventional ways.
- Connected this understanding with their learning from Weeks 1 to 4 of the course.
- Deepened and broadened their practical appreciation of these concepts, by applying them to a self-chosen case study.
- Attempted the related self assessment quiz questions on the VLE.
- Contributed constructively to the related discussions on the VLE.
Feedback Week: 15-21 February 2021
Purpose
- Assessment of student learning, including optional personal action plans and accountability process
- Assessment of student satisfaction
- Encouragement of further study
Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours reading material, etc., although this will vary from person to person.
While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material).
Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (discussion boards,etc).
A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.
What our students say:
"Doug came across as knowledgeable, friendly and e-approachable as it was an online course. The pace was right and he made everyone feel valued and their contribution to be important."
"It helped me grasp several concepts which I couldn't previously understand when it came to Finance. I feel more confident with my knowledge of financial statements and look forward to building on the strong foundation I've gained from Doug teaching this course."
"exceptional in every sense !"
