Financial Skills for the Proactive PA
Designed specifically for Executive Secretaries, Assistants and PAs, Financial Skills for the Proactive PA will enable you to gain an understanding of the accounts, budgets, cashflow and overall financial workings of companies and become more confident handling financial information.
Course Overview
Need to convince your boss?
Help your boss understand how IIRMD can make a difference
This course can also be delivered in-house and tailored to meet the specific needs of your organisation. Click here for more information.
If you are not confident working with financial concepts and language then you are not alone. The role of the executive PA is becoming increasingly demanding. This is perhaps reflected by the high calibre of person that this position now attracts. Bosses now expect their personal assistants to support them in all areas of their work including finance.
However for the busy PA, making financially based decisions without the assurance of a formal financial background can be very daunting. This practical two day course will demystify finance and help you enhance your effectiveness as a PA, ensuring that you can make financially sound business decisions and showing how you can add even more value to your company.
THIS COURSE WILL ENABLE YOU TO:
- understand exactly what the finance team are talking about
- gain the tools and knowledge you need to get what you want from the finance team
- efficiently and successfully use a budget to control
- analyse a balance sheet and find out what is happening in your company
- understand the difference between cash and profit
- have the tools and techniques to maximise your chances of getting hold of those extra bits of capital equipment that currently seem unobtainable
- know the difference between overheads and capital expenditure
- enrich your job by taking over some finance areas from your boss
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
This course has been specifically designed for PAs and top secretaries whose bosses either work in finance or are key figures within the organisation and have to deal with budgets, management accounts and financial facts. You will develop an insight into how financial professionals work and will gain the confidence to liaise effectively with accountants.
Booking Information
| Dates | Prices | Book This Course | Discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 - 20 Apr 2012 |
£ 995 |
 |
-
|
| 15 - 16 Oct 2012 |
£ 995 |
|
-
|
This course will be held on the above listed dates in central London. For more information about venue please click here.
Programme Details
"Brilliant - I can finally understand what my boss and colleagues are talking about"
Alison WoodPA to Finance DirectorVIVENDI WATER UK PLC
WELCOME TO THE LANGUAGE OF FINANCE
This first session is all about breaking the language barrier by enabling you to get to grips with the special vocabulary that accountants use. By the end of this session you will learn that understanding accounts is not purely about number crunching. In reality finance is never black and white but instead varying different shades of grey. The most fundamental lesson you will learn today is how important it is to look at all the facts and figures within the context of the business itself.
BALANCE SHEET BARRIERS
Video Arts production starring John Cleese & Dawn French
Exercise 1
This session will look at various words used in ‘accounts speak’ to describe various accounting events. In the process, participants will gain an understanding of accruals, prepayments, depreciation, capitalisation, research and developments plus many other concepts.
Exercise 2
During this session you will learn how to produce a budgeted cash flow statement, profit and loss accounts and balance sheets.
PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS
In the final session we will take a real set of published accounts from a UK Plc (in this case the Burton Group) and read them for information. At the end of the exercise, participants will be able to pick up a balance sheet, profit and loss account and read them together with the notes to any published set of accounts and understand the messages contained therein.
You are invited to bring along your own company accounts so that you can see how the tools that we use to dissect the Burton Group’s accounts can be applied to your own. Even if you work for a company that uses American based accounts or a private company, if you bring along your accounts, in whatever form they come in, we can work with them and help you understand the information they contain.
WHERE CASH FLOW STATEMENTS TELL YOU ABOUT THE MONEY!
Cash flow statements are an annualised summary of where the cash has gone into business. It is the easiest way to find out what is happening in a business and the clearest statement of what is actually going on! We will use our published company’s accounts to read through a cash flow statement and at the end of the exercise, participants will be able to read a cash flow statement and understand exactly what has happened to the funding within the business.
WORKING WITH MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTS
The published accounts are good for shareholders, but managers work with monthly management accounts. We will analyse a detailed set of management accounts and demystify them.
BUDGETS AS A METHOD OF CONTROL
Good budgeting is about predicting the future as clearly as possible. Data + assumptions = predictions is the equation that you need to apply. No one’s budget is 100% accurate but it should be a very reliable guess forward into the future.
If you do that, you can then compare what actually happens with what you predicted would happen and the variance will be the something that you act upon. Acting upon a variance will mean either changing a cost structure or taking a particular action. During this session we will discuss all the possibilities and how to keep control through budgets.
"BUDGETS" - VIDEO ARTS PRODUCTION
How to budget so that you can get what you want from the accounts department
Exercise 3
Your turn to have a go at writing a budget
Your Personal Action Plan
Course Leader
Jane Allan FCA MIPD is a chartered accountant who began her working career as a bilingual secretary. She has never forgotten how it feels to be in that role. When she qualified as an accountant she went straight into financial journalism and then become a partner in a firm of accountants. During that time she was one of the first two women ever elected to the council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Since 1981 she has specialised in giving both financial awareness and management skills training to a whole spectrum of individuals. She also writes for leading publications and has two major books in print at the moment. Please note: You may bring along your own company’s accounts so that you can check out all that is being said alongside something you actually have to work with.
Home
