Finance for Non-Financial Managers

My name is Zunaid Khan and I am the course designer / facilitator.

Before I tell you about our course let’s first look at why being financially intelligent is critical for your business and career success.

You’ll see that you need to financially smart whether you are a:

Why is this so?

The reason is that in business you are constantly faced with making decisions and choosing between different courses of action.

For example:

If you make good decisions your business will prosper and your career will advance. If you make poor decisions it’s going to have the opposite effect.

Now when making business decisions you will need to rely on financial information. This includes reports such as financial statements, budgets, forecasts, variance analyses, ratio analyses and so on.

It then goes without saying that you need to understand what these reports mean.

If you are unable to make sense of the numbers on these reports then you’re more likely to make the wrong decisions (with negative and potentially even catastrophic consequences).

How does this play out in the corporate space ?

Quite simple. Those people who are able to increase profits and cash flow are going to move quickly up the corporate ladder.

And what about business owners ?

It’s even more important if you’re a business owner because what you earn from your business is directly linked to the profit and cash flow that your business generates.

Either way – you need to be financially intelligent.

Here is some proof

If you look at the most successful CEO’s in business (in South Africa or in the rest of the world) you will find that they have a good grip on the numbers.

It’s not surprising that many CEO’s have a background in finance. No doubt, it played a major role in getting them to the top of their organisations.

To prove this point further consider what the most successful business people in the world have had to say on this topic.

Bill Gates (the founder of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world) said:

“Know your numbers” is a fundamental precept of business.

The word “precept” means a commandment, which indicates just how important it is.

Warren Buffett (one of the leading investors in history and also one of the wealthiest people in the world) said: “Accounting is the language of business”.

Now imagine living in a world where you don’t understand the language that is spoken by everyone else around you.

How would this impact on your ability to effectively operate in such a world ?

Obviously, very negatively.

Well, unfortunately this is the exact situation that most people find themselves in when working in the business world.

And it does impact negatively on their business and / or career. Because how can you be successful in business if you don’t understand the language of business ?

What happens if you’re not financially literate ?

In my years of working with firms of different sizes (from small startups to large corporates) I’ve seen first-hand how a lack of financial know-how can result in poor business decisions, often with disastrous consequences.

In the corporate space I’ve seen managers enter into loss-making contracts because they didn’t understand basic financial principles. I’ve sat in many budget meetings where it was clear that a manager didn’t know how to properly put a budget together (often with embarrassing consequences).

I’ve seen business owners lose millions of Rands by overpaying for businesses because they didn’t do a proper valuation on the business they were buying and didn’t understand basic valuation principles.

And I have had heard many stories of business owners being defrauded (often by their own employees) because they didn’t have proper controls over their business finances.

In larger businesses the stakes are even higher.

Let me tell you a story.

You may not have heard of a company called Worldcom (unless you follow the international business press).

Worldcom was one of the largest telecommunications companies in the USA in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Then in 2002 a massive accounting fraud was discovered which resulted in the company declaring bankruptcy.

With assets of over 100 billion dollars this still ranks as one of the largest bankruptcies of all time. The senior executives in charge of the company were charged with fraud. The CEO Bernard Ebbers pleaded innocence and said that he wasn’t responsible as he didn’t understand what the finance people were doing. In his court case he said: “I don’t know about technology and I don’t know about finance and accounting.”

The jury didn’t buy this. He was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

The bottom line is that ignorance is no excuse, especially if you hold a senior position in an organization.

By now, I’m sure you can see why financial know-how is a critical business skill.

But what should you do if you are in the position where you haven’t studied finance and accounting ?

What if accounting terms such as Equity, Intangible Assets, Provisions and so on have no meaning for you ?

What should you do if financial reports such as Income Statements and Balance Sheets intimidate you ?

The good news is that this is something you can learn.

The truth is that like most things in life, it will take some time and effort.

It doesn’t have to have to be hard.

And believe it or not, the process can be quite enjoyable.

But it does take some time and effort.

If anybody tells you that you can become financially smart in a day or just a few days then you should know that its not true.

Yes, you can make a great start by attending a course. But i

How to become Financially Intelligent

Becoming financially intelligent is a process where you work through multiple stages with each one building on the one before it.

Let me show you what I mean.

STAGE 1: Understand what the accounting terms mean in plain and simple English.

Even though the terms may sound complicated they can be simple to understand provided they are explained to you in plain and simple English.

Here is an example:

ASSETS are things that you OWN that have value. So your car, house, computer and so on are your assets because you own them. They have value because you can convert them into cash i.e. by selling them, or you can use them to bring in cash e.g. by renting them out.

LIABILITIES are what you OWE. So you bond on your house is a liability. So is your credit card. These are amounts that will have to be paid at some point in the future i.e. they will result in cash going out.

STAGE 2: Learn about the different financial relationships that exist

Once you understand what the different accounting terms mean in simple English you can start looking at the relationships between them.

For example, if you want to calculate how wealthy you are, you take what you OWN and you subtract from that what you OWE.

So OWNS – OWES = WEALTH.

In other words ASSETS – LIABILITIES = WEALTH.

Think about it this way.

If you sold all of your assets you would have a certain amount of cash on hand.

However, you cannot keep all this cash for yourself. You have to pay the people you owe from this cash i.e. your liabilities.

Once you have paid your liabilities you will be left with a certain amount of cash. This amount of “left over” cash is what your actual wealth is.

The accounting word for WEALTH is EQUITY.

In other words: ASSETS – LIABILITIES = EQUITY.

You may have seen this equation before. Now you should understand what it actually means i.e. it calculates wealth by looking at what you OWN (Assets) and what you OWE (Liabilities).

And this is exactly what a BALANCE SHEET shows you.

If you draw up your own personal Balance Sheet it will show you what you OWN (your ASSETS), what you OWE (your LIABILITIES) and your Wealth (the EQUITY) which is the difference between your Assets and your Liabilities.

The same principle applies to a business.

A business also has ASSETS and LIABILITIES. If you subtract the one from the other you get the EQUITY (i.e. wealth) of the business.

So when we are looking at the Balance Sheet of any business, this is what we are looking at.

The EQUITY of the business is the accounting value of what the business is worth to the owners of the business.

This is one of the things you will look at when buying a business and determining its price.

So, in the same way as shown to you above you can gain a proper understanding of the other financial statements such as the Income Statement and Cash Flow Statement as well as tools like ratio analysis.

If you found this useful make sure you sign up here for some more free lessons.

STAGE 3: Apply what you learn

Once you have the understand the basics you can start to apply your knowledge to real life scenarios.

So while our example above explaining the Balance Sheet is still theoretical we can make it practical by analysing the Balance Sheets of some real companies.

For example, we can take the Balance Sheets of companies such as MTN, Vodacom, Telkom and examine them.

We can look at things like:

Once you are able to start analysing financial information you can start to learn how to make the type of decisions that I described earlier.

Things like:

By using real life examples and case studies you will not be learning theory only but you will be building the skills that make you financially intelligent.

Let me now know tell you a bit about myself and the course I have designed.

A bit about me

I am a Chartered Accountant and I also hold an MBA from Edinburgh Business School. I’ve worked in many senior level Finance positions including that of Financial Director. I tell you this so that you can rest assured that I understand this field well.

However, that hasn’t been the major source of inspiration for me to develop this course.

What has?

Two things

Course Design Principles

I’ve already described above how you can become financially intelligent and our course is based on that process.

There are a few more things I want to add:

Course Delivery

There are 2 different ways to complete our course – either attend a 3 day classroom course (which includes post course support) or complete the course via Online learning.

Classroom Courses

We deliver classroom courses in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. The latest dates are on the registration form below. If none of these dates suit you please sign up for future course notifications here.

Online Course

The online courses run over a period of 8 weeks. Each week you will be provided with video training which you will need to watch as well as some exercises to complete. This is then followed by a weekly Q&A webinar where you can ask me any questions you like on the course material.

The online courses have a set start and end date. You will find the next start date on the registration form below. If this start date doesn’t suit you you can sign up to get notified of future online courses here.

Next Steps

You can read what past students have had to say about the course below.

If you are ready to get started please click here to register.

If you would like to get some free sample lessons please please click here.

And if you have any questions about the course please complete this form here.