Professional Skills for Finance and Accounting

Course overview

Course outline

1. 1Day 1: The macro finance picture

   • Understanding the accounting cycle
   • The income statement
   • The balance sheet
   • Changes in owners’ equity statements
   • Cash flow statements
   • The relationship of financial statements
   • Functions of management
   • Elements of a vision for finance and accounting department
   • Effectiveness versus efficiency
   • Supporting the operating departments
   • Purpose of the finance and accounting function
2. 2Day 2: Personal organization and time management

   • The new skills set
   • Delegation and priorities
   • Delegation characteristics
   • Rules of delegation
   • Handling meetings effectively
   • Maintaining clean desk policy
   • Managing your in-box
   • Peak performance time
3. 3Day 3: Managing the finance function & Key Excel functions and tools to enhance efficiency

   • Managing the finance function
   • Hiring the best people
   • Identifying recruitment criteria
   • Developing interviewing skills
   • Interpersonal communication
   • Fundamentals of communication skills
   • Personality communication styles
   • The attitude and skills matrix
   • Evaluating finance staff performance
   • Employee motivation tools
   • Key Excel functions and tools to enhance efficiency
   • Consolidating multiple sets of data
   • Applying control at the data entry through data validation
   • Reconciling accounts by using 'vlookup'
4. 4Day 4: Organizing the finance function

   • Teamwork skills in finance and accounting
   • Assessing the need for team building program
   • Finance as a project
   • Organizing by function
   • Organizing by purpose
   • Staff duties and responsibilities
   • The need for review and authorization procedures
   • The authorization matrix and control of processes in organizations
   • Cross training and backup strategies
   • Scheduling the monthly accounting cycle
5. 5Day 5: Policies and procedures

   • Purposes of the policies and procedures manual
   • Documenting and communicating financial policies
   • Staff involvement and responsibilities