Accounting & Budgeting Skills

Course details

Organizations frequently delegate responsibility for budget preparation and control to line managers who have had no essential training to prepare them for this responsibility to effectively manage a key resource. Budgeting is an essential part of managing your business.

The Accounting & Budgeting course has been designed for supervisors and managers who do not have an accounting background. The course will enable participants to explain and apply general principles of accounting, and to use the basic tools and techniques of the accounting process. It will also enable you to eradicate errors when compiling budgets, and thereby avoid financial difficulties, present budgets with confidence and accuracy, and analyze variances so that corrective action can be taken.

Some core components of the course include:

• Concept of profit
• Principles of budget preparation and control
• Balance sheet
• Core concepts of management accounts
• Ratios and their implications
• Costing process
• Break even analysis

Course Objectives:

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

• Understand basic accounting knowledge
• Understand the terminology, definitions, and benefits of management accounting
• Conduct a cost volume profit analysis, an incremental analysis, and cost allocation
• Effectively communicate budgetary information
• Understand the role of the bank reconciliation
• Work with core ratios related to simple scenarios
• Comprehend management information and identify key performance indicators of an effective system
• Be more confident in making informed financial decisions
• Recognize importance of effective preparation in establishing realistic budgets
• Prepare and control budgets with ability and confidence

Course Outlines:

The Basics

• Good reasons for budgeting
• What is a budget? Where does it come from? Why do we do it?
• What are the barriers to successful budgeting?
• Where does the budget fit in the business plan?
• Basic Principles

1. Income and expenditure
2. Capital and cash
3. Approaches to budgeting
4. Different types of budgets

Management Accounting

• Terms and definitions
• Benefits
• Practical application
• Cost volume profit analysis
• Relevant costing and special decisions
• Incremental analysis
• Cost allocation
• Tracking expenditure and variances
• Budgeting for profit
• The budget cycle - how it all comes together

Analysis of a Balance Sheet

• Understanding the balance sheet

Understanding Profit and Profitability

• Understanding profits and profit margins
• The making of a profit and loss statement

Ratio Analysis

• Liquidity and efficiency ratios
• Profitability ratios
• Market ratios

Essentials of Costing and Break Even Analysis

• Types of costs
• Cost behavior and its relevance to budget setting and control
• Cost units examples
• Understanding the break even point

Planning and Preparing Budgets

7 Steps to Successful Budgeting

• A guide to 7 key areas for success