Great entrepreneurs, executives and directors know when they are talking dollars, they are making sense. When they look at a set of financial statement, they can immediately evaluate performance, identify issues, and probe for insight. Whether they are in the boardroom, a conference, or a meeting for dinner, they are comfortable talking about the numbers to raise money, negotiate deals, or make investment decisions. Financial intelligence gives these senior people their swagger.

This online CPE course is uniquely designed to show you how seasoned executives act and sound like financial experts without dwelling on the details of how one prepares financial reports and analysis. The emphasis of this online continuing education course is on the users of financial information and serving their needs to make better decisions.

In this continuing professional education course, you will learn to look at financial statements through the eyes of a seasoned executive. You will learn how to probe into issues of performance and identify root cause. You will learn to rise above the preparation aspects of accounting and finance that bog down many new financial professionals and scare most non-financial professionals. The insights will help you negotiate your next financing or make your next investment decision. Regardless of whether you have a financial background or not, you will benefit from taking this course to hone your financial intelligence.

Major topics covered in this online CPE webinar:

Who uses financial information and for what purpose?
Where does financial information come from?
Internal controls and why you should care?
What are the accounting rules?
How to read the income statement in the right way?
How to analyze income to evaluate performance?
You do it: analyze this income statement
Sorting good assets from bad
Assessing the money, you owe to others
How you should think about equity?
Setting financing strategy
You do it: analyze this balance sheet
Evaluating cash flow and the capital allocation decisions
You do it: analyze this cash flow statement
What to watch for in the notes to the financial statements
Drilling into performance issues with variance analysis
Understanding cost behavior to predict profitability
Managing the budget process
Evaluating a capital budgeting analysis to determine whether to invest
Assessing your finance function

Learning Objectives

To identify the users and their needs
To recognize the importance of accounting processes, systems, and internal controls
To analyze financial statements to evaluate performance, financial strength, and cash flow generation
To evaluate variances and root cause of performance
To assess costing analysis and decisions of operating leverage
To Make investment decisions and critically analyze forecasts