Financial Management

​This training is designed to help professionals enhance their understanding of both traditional and advanced methods used to account, analyze, and manage costs. Participants will learn to apply various techniques such as activity-based costing, Kaizen, value analysis, target costing, and life cycle costing to effectively analyze and manage costs. The course also focuses on preparing cost analyses and reports to enable management to make informed decisions.

The course is suitable for:  

CFOs, finance business partners, management accountants, financial/cost controllers, planning and analysis specialists, internal auditors and accountants.

Topics covered:  

• Main costing concepts:
  • Cost elements, cost structure, cost behavior, cost drivers,
• Application of costing concepts to different organizations and cost objects:
  • Job costing, batch costing, process costing,
• Reasoning and application of the main costing methods:
  • Marginal costing, absorption costing, reconciliation,
• Main costing approaches:
  • Actual costing, normal costing, standard costing,
• Variance analysis:
  • Variance calculations, reconciliation reports, standard costing automation,
• Product and service costing using Activity-Based Costing (ABC):
  • Basic steps to calculating an activity-based cost,
  • ABC: benefits and limitations,
  • Direct product profitability (DPP) within the retail sector,
  • Customer profitability analysis (CPA),
  • Distribution channel profitability,
  • Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC),
  • Activity-based management (ABM),
• Kaizen and continuous improvement:
  • Kaizen costing versus standard costing concepts,
• Value-adding analysis:
  • Value chain analysis, value analysis, functional analysis,
• Target costing:
  • Target costing stages, target costs and standard costs, kaizen costing and target costing,
• Life cycle costing:
  • Product / customer life cycle budget.

​This training is designed to help professionals enhance their ability to make effective investment decisions that drive long-term organizational growth. Participants will learn the steps in the investment decision-making process, apply various investment appraisal techniques, and build capital investment models incorporating factors such as working capital, taxation, and inflation.

The course also focuses on analyzing risk and uncertainty associated with investment decisions, optimizing investments for sustainable growth, determining optimal asset replacement cycles, and evaluating lease versus buy decisions.​

The course is suitable for:  

CFOs, finance business partners, investment managers, investment/financial/credit analysts, management accountants, project managers, and internal auditors.​

Topics covered:  

• Capital investment:
  • Decision making model for capital expenditure decisions,
  • Types of capital investment projects,
  • Post-completion audit,
• Appraisal methods:
  • Traditional methods – payback period (PP), accounting rate of return (ARR),
  • Time value of money and discounting,
  • Appraisal methods based on discounting – net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), modified internal rate of return (MIRR), discounted payback period (DPP), profitability index (PI), discounted payback profitability index (DPBI),
• Capital investment modeling:
  • Financial model templates, relevant cash flows,
  • Terminal value, annuities and perpetuities,
  • Working capital, taxation (income tax, VAT), inflation, cost of capital,
• Dealing with risk in investment decisions:
  • Sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, stress testing, value at risk (VaR),
  • Decision trees and multi-stage decision problems, real options,
  • Adding a risk premium to the discount rate,
• Further aspects of investment appraisal:
  • Capital rationing, capital assets replacement decisions, lease or buy decisions.

​This training is designed to help professionals improve the quality of short-term and medium-term business decisions through effective cost analysis and management accounting techniques. Participants will learn how to research and use data from a variety of sources, apply cost concepts in real decision-making situations, and explain the reasoning behind their decisions.

The course covers decision-making under risk and uncertainty, introduces key behavioural considerations related to stakeholder influence, and enhances participants’ ability to make fact-based decisions even in high-risk situations. The training provides practical tools and insights to support better financial judgment across departments and functions.

The course is suitable for:  

CFOs, finance business partners, financial managers, financial analysts, management accountants, and non-financial managers across all functions and business units.​

Topics covered:  

• Decision making process:
  • Decision criteria – profit-based versus value-based,
  • Data collection for decision making purposes,
• Cost concepts used for decision making:
  • Fixed and variable costs, relevant and non-relevant costs,
  • Avoidable and unavoidable costs, opportunity costs,
  • Calculation of relevant costs – materials, labour, equipment,
• The main types of decisions made by organisations:
  • Minimum pricing (maximum discount) decisions,
  • Accept or reject an order decisions,
  • Shutdown decisions – deleting a segment or temporary closure,
  • Limiting factor decisions,
  • Make or buy (outsource) decisions,
  • Joint products and further processing decisions,
• Dealing with risk and uncertainty in decision making:
  • Expected values, standard deviations, decision trees, real options,
  • Maximax, maximin and minimax regret rules,
• Heuristic decision making:
  • Cognitive errors, emotional biases.

​This training is designed to equip professionals with a comprehensive understanding of risk management and internal control systems, essential for achieving organizational objectives and enhancing business processes. Participants will learn to identify and assess various types of risks, understand the correlation between risk and control, and design effective control activities. The course also covers the documentation of controls, execution of internal control tests, and addresses typical challenges in internal control systems. Additionally, it provides insights into IT dependencies, the relevance of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and its requirements.​

The course is suitable for:  

Senior and middle management aiming to deepen their knowledge of risk management processes and internal control system implementation, members of public or private sector organizations involved in risk-related roles, finance or IT experts responsible for process design, small business entrepreneurs and startup owners seeking to minimize operational risk, internal and external auditors, and professionals from large corporations required to comply with SOX or similar regulations.​

Topics covered:  

• Definition and types of risk:
  • Understanding various risk categories and their implications,
• Risk management:
  • Processes involved in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks,
• Control as a risk mitigation tool:
  • Types of control, designing control activities,
  • Understanding and documenting 5W control (Why, What, Where, Who, When),
  • Segregation of duties (SOD),
• IT control and dependencies:
  • IT general controls (ITGC),
  • IT dependencies (calculations, reports, interface agreements),
  • Differences between automatic and IT-dependent controls,
• Control effectiveness tests:
  • Test design effectiveness, test operating effectiveness,
  • Assessment techniques and comfort levels (from inquiry to reperformance),
  • Analysis of uncertainty sources, control deficiencies, remediation processes,
  • Standard control testing challenges with real-life examples,
• Methodologies and frameworks:
  • Overview of COSO, COBIT, and SOX frameworks and their applications.​

​This training is designed to enhance professionals' competencies in identifying, classifying, evaluating, and managing various risks that could prevent an organization from achieving its strategic goals. Participants will learn to identify and evaluate risks and their sources that can impede strategy implementation, diagnose significant and emerging risks, develop and implement appropriate risk mitigation strategies, design and implement risk reporting systems, and advise on the application of risk management policies and industry best practices.​

The course is suitable for:  

Senior and middle management, risk managers, internal controllers, internal auditors, and business process analysts.​

Topics covered:  

• Understanding risk:
  • Concepts used to characterize risks,
  • Influence of emotional factors on risk perception,
  • Limitations in human ability to assess risk accurately,
• Evolution of modern risk management:
  • Risk management standards,
  • Benefits of integrating ERM with business,
  • Components and principles of COSO 2017,
• ERM component No.1 – governance and culture:
  • Board risk oversight,
  • Establishment of operational structures,
  • Defining the desired culture,
  • Demonstrating commitment to core values,
  • Attracting, developing, and retaining capable individuals,
• ERM component No.2 – strategy and objective-setting:
  • Business context analysis,
  • Definition of risk appetite,
  • Evaluation of alternative strategies,
  • Formulating business objectives,
• ERM component No.3 – performance:
  • Risk identification, risk severity assessment, risk prioritization, risk response measures,
• ERM component No.4 – review and revision:
  • Assessing substantial changes, reviewing risk and performance,
  • Pursuing improvement in enterprise risk management,
• ERM component No.5 – information, communication, and reporting:
  • Leveraging information and technology,
  • Communicating risk information,
  • Reporting on risk, culture, and performance.

​This training is designed to help professionals enhance their ability to manage working capital effectively, aiming to maximize company value while ensuring sufficient liquidity for daily operations and creditor obligations. Participants will learn to evaluate the effectiveness of working capital utilization through financial ratio analysis, determine the working capital cycle, and understand the relationships between working capital, liquidity, and short-term funding needs. The course also covers evaluating alternative actions to support working capital decisions, applying profit-based and value-based approaches to working capital management, and identifying risks and opportunities associated with working capital management.​

The course is suitable for:  

CFOs, finance business partners, management accountants, financial/cost controllers, planning and analysis specialists, internal auditors, and accountants.

Topics covered:  

• Components of working capital:
  • Receivables collection period, payables payment period,
  • Inventory days, operating cycle,
  • Cash conversion/working capital cycle,
  • Liquidity ratios,
• Profit-based working capital management:
  • Relationship between working capital and profitability,
• Value-based working capital management:
  • Relationship between working capital and shareholder value,
  • Working capital changes and impact on discounted future free cash flow (DCF),
    
• Different techniques used to manage working capital:
  • Strategies of working capital management – aggressive, moderate, and conservative,
  • Methods of inventory management – ABC inventory matrix, just-in-time (JIT) system, the economic order quantity (EOQ) model,
  • Methods of trade receivables management – credit control procedures, debt factoring, and invoice discounting,
  • Methods of trade payables management, effective cost of trade credit,
  • Methods of cash management,
  • Risks of overtrading, risks and opportunities related to working capital management.