Professional Development Series

Understanding the Financial Statements

Would you like to be able to better read and understand your organization’s financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flows)? This seminar provides an understanding of the fundamental elements of financial statements, how the statements are constructed, and how these statements relate to each other. The seminar focuses on how the balance sheet, income statement, and the statement of cash flows are related so that non-accountants can better understand and read them. Additionally, the concept of cash vs accrual accounting, a common cause of confusion, is discussed. Finally, the seminar discusses how to link accounting information to business strategy. This seminar goes great with the Budgeting and Forecasting for Nonfinancial Managers, Small Business Funding, Building a Basic Financial Model in Excel, and Increasing Return on Investment with the Time Value of Money seminars in the series.

Increasing Return on Investment with the Time Value of Money

Is maximizing the use of capital important to you or your organization? This seminar covers the basic time value of money (TVM) characteristics including present value, future value, returns on investment, cost of capital and discounting (valuing) cash flow streams. Participants will learn the basic calculations and learn to apply them to real situations. Capital for most all of us is limited so what we choose to do with our capital is important and we should maximize our Return on Investment (ROI). This seminar provides an understanding of the components of TVM and a framework that can be used to increase ROI in choosing projects that deploy and use capital. While not required, the Understanding the Financial Statements seminar in this series is a nice compliment to this seminar. The Hewlett-Packard 10bII (HP 10bII) calculator (or phone app, which can be downloaded fairly inexpensively) is required.

Budgeting and Forecasting for Nonfinancial Managers

Does budget time or budgeting in general frustrate you because the process, information, and data make no sense? If so, this seminar provides an overview of the budgeting process, the basic components of the budget and best practices in budget development. Further, the seminar provides a basic understanding of the overall budget and how the various components fit together. Budgeting is a necessary component of organizations and better understanding it is essential toward making the process a little less complicated. The seminars Understanding the Financial Statements and Building a Basic Financial Model in Excel in this series are nice compliments to this seminar.

Small Business Funding

Are you considering obtaining initial funding or growth funding for your business? This seminar discusses the types of business loans, the various types of lenders, and an overview of recent trends in small business financing. Additionally, the seminar provides an overview of considerations and what may be requested when applying for a business loan including the basics of a business plan, which is necessary for most loan requests. In addition to preparing for the loan request, this seminar discusses the application and funding process, negotiating key points of the agreement, and what you might expect after the loan is closed. The seminars Understanding the Financial Statements, Developing Business Strategy, and especially Building a Basic Financial Model in Excel, are great compliments to this seminar.

Basic Excel

This seminar is for the beginning Excel user and provides an overview of topics ranging from basic functions, formatting, keyboard shortcuts and linking sheets and workbooks to utilizing select functions (i.e. auto sum, sort, subtotals, find/replace, replace duplicates, filters, etc.). The seminar is designed for the new to basic user of Excel. If you would like a more advanced or intermediate seminar in Excel, please let us know and we will add it to our upcoming roster. This seminar is a good supplement to the Building a Basic Financial Model in Excel seminar in this series for those Excel users who are just getting started or who are beginning users of Excel.

Building a Basic Financial Model in Excel

This seminar is designed to provide an overview of building the basic elements of a financial forecast model in Excel. The components of a financial model covered are the sales forecast, the cost of sales forecast, major expense categories (i.e. personnel costs, travel, advertising, etc.), and development of the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. The seminar format will use a fictional business and shell financial model template as an example for demonstration. As the seminar is conducted, learners will build out the template model in Excel, which they can take with them after the seminar. Leaners should have a good working understanding and basic skills in Excel (or have taken the Basic Excel seminar in this series) to gain the most from the seminar. Additionally, the Budgeting and Forecasting for Nonfinancial Managers seminar in this series is a nice compliment to this seminar.

Marketing Basics

This seminar provides a survey of basic marketing concepts, theory, communications, and strategy. Learners will obtain an understanding of the basics of what should be considered when developing a marketing plan and getting the organization’s message out. Effectively communicating the organizations value proposition and/or mission is an essential component of marketing and is discussed. This seminar would be a nice compliment to or with the Developing Business Strategy and Small Business Funding seminars offered in this series.

Developing Business Strategy

Would you like to better understand business strategy, how it is formulated, and how to track the outcomes? This seminar is an overview of the basic tenants of business strategy. Topics covered include conducting a STEEP analysis of an organization’s external factors/environment, SWOT analysis, internal analysis, the three basic forms of business-level strategy, mission/vision statements, developing overall organization strategy, and other relevant topics. Finally, the seminar discusses how to track strategy toward assessing effectiveness. The seminar will use examples of existing organizations for illustration and discussion of concepts covered. This seminar would be great paired with Small Business Funding and/or Marketing Basics.

Business Management Skills Boot Camp

This boot camp is a three-day series of seminars built from seminar topics in this Professional Development Series (