Analysing financial statements (61405953) - Online

Overview

This course is intended for the non-finance manager (or business owner) who needs to understand and gain insight from financial reporting in order to ask the right questions of their accountant, and lead their organisation or team towards meeting objectives and improved future performance.

Financial information for an organisation is presented by accountants in three core financial statements – the balance sheet, the income (or profit and loss) statement and the cash flow statement. The ability to analyse these reports allows you to measure whether the expected results of your team’s efforts have been achieved. The balance sheet and cash flow statement also provide valuable information about the financial position of the organisation and, in particular, whether cash flow is sufficient or becoming a concern.

This course is aimed at giving you a high-level overview of the three reports and ways to analyse and draw insights from them.  It will provide you with the ability to review your own reports which can then lead to conversations with others in your team, or your accountant, about areas that require further review and potential change - with a view to improving future performance.

Key topics:

• Accounting and financial statements
• The balance sheet
• The income statement
• The cash flow statement
• Performance measurement
• Ratios

This one hour online course forms part of the FastClass short course suite.

Objectives

• Identify the three core financial statements and the different purposes each serves
• Analyse the balance sheet and cash flow statement to derive insights about an organisation’s financial position and cash flows
• Analyse the income statement using vertical and ratio analyses to derive insights about an organisation’s performance

Audience

This course is designed for the non-finance manager (or business owner) who needs to understand and gain insight from financial reporting.