Sustaining Effective Financial Control

9.30 - 9.45 Coffee & course objectives

9.45 - 10.30 What information is needed:

• time frame
• format
• accuracy

10.30 - 11.15 Reading your profit and loss account

• what it tells you
• what it doesn't tell you
• applying ratios and measures of performance
• benchmarking against your competitors

11.15 - 11.30 Coffee break

11.30 - 12.45 Actions to improve profitability

• fundamentals of costing
• knowing your break even point
• understanding how costs may vary with sales
• key measures of efficiency and productivity
• identifying your key performance drivers
• using budgets; dealing with variances

12.45 - 13.30 Lunch Break

13.30 - 14.30 Understanding your Balance Sheet

• what it tells you - how much is invested
• what it doesn't tell you
• identifying working capital
• applying ratios and measures of performance

14.30 - 15.30 Managing working capital

• stock management
• debtors and credit management
• creditors and other payments

15.30 - 16.15 Managing your cash resources

• understanding cash flow forecasts
• profit v. cash

16.15 - 16.30 Action plans - what will you do now?

• the information needed to maintain effective financial control
• understand key measures of financial performance
• actions to improve the profitability and cash flow of your business