Course on Budgeting and Essential Business Finance

Introduction:

Understanding how to plan and manage finance within an organization is crucial for any effective management role. The Essentials of Successful Budgeting and Business Finance course provides a comprehensive look into finance and budgeting within business management. Emphasizing internal organizational functions, the course focuses on budgeting, strategic decision-making, and cost control as essential components of financial management.

By engaging in this course, participants will learn to navigate the entire budgeting process and its integration with various corporate levels. This knowledge is fundamental, as budgeting is integral to effective organizational management and essential for all professionals across functional areas.

Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Support the integration of finance with organizational operations.
• Explain the role and influence of budgets within an organization.
• Identify the connection between budgets and strategic management.
• Understand the impact of budgets on managers and employees.
• Grasp the dual purpose of budgets: planning and control.
• Understand responsibility accounting within the budgeting framework.
• Recognize the controlling aspects of budgeting.
• Use budgeting terminology effectively in communication.
• Integrate financial and non-financial measures effectively.

Training Methodology:

• Case Studies
• Group Discussions
• Simulation Games
• Workshops
• Case Studies
• Budgeting Software Practice

Course Outline:

Unit 1: Strategy & Budgeting: Introduction of the “Business Finance” Mindset

• Compare managerial and financial accounting.
• Key financial statements:
  • Profit and loss statement
  • Statement of financial position
  • Statement of cash flows
• Addressing modern organizational challenges.
• The interdependence of strategic plans, budgets, costing, and management control.
• Management accounting for organizational control.
• Management control systems and budget-driven performance.
• Assessing the current situation in your company.

Unit 2: Problems Related to Budgeting

• Master budget and detailed schedules for achieving company objectives.
• Measuring performance and budgeting constraints.
• Master budget and its schedules.
• Managerial motivation in planning/budgeting and psychology of finance.
• Interrelationships between budgeting and costing.
• Principles of cost classification in budgeting.

Unit 3: Cost Control for the Purpose of the Budget

• Cost terminology and implications.
• Overhead vs. inventory costs.
• Differentiating production-related and non-production-related costs.
• Variable and fixed costs analysis (Cost-Volume-Profit analysis).
• Direct charges vs. indirect expenses.
• Addressing estimation issues: underestimation and overestimation.

Unit 4: Flexible Budgets & Variance Analysis

• Budgets as performance metrics and communication tools.
• Assessing and improving organizational performance.
• Value creation through budgeting.
• Fixed vs. variable budgets.
• Determining flexible budget variances and sales volume variances.
• Implementing changes in variance analysis.

Unit 5: Balanced Scorecards: Tools To Bring Finance Into The Business

• Bridging business and finance through effective strategy visualization.
• Components of the balanced scorecard.
• Assigning responsibilities for balanced scorecard strategies.
• Setting performance targets and metrics.
• Developing Strategy Maps.
• Creating appropriate measures using the balanced scorecard.