Where are the financial dangers lurking?

What is my business worth?

What are these accountants talking about?

Many successful managers and business people do not have any formal financial training. Nevertheless, understanding the basic concepts of financial management and analysis is an important advantage for anyone who wants to get to the top or to run their own business competitively.

This intensive three-day workshop introduces tools to help you answer basic questions about any business. How healthy is this business? What does the balance sheet tell me? How much is the company worth? Is this project really profitable? What do those annual reports mean? What is the Portuguese POC and how does it compare with British and American systems of accounts?

This course will not make you an expert in these areas but it will remove the mystery from the language of accountants and newspaper financial pages and will help you to understand your business properly.

The course assumes no knowledge of finance or accounting but some experience in general management and basic spreadsheet skills would be useful.

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Outline programme content

Understanding financial statements
· Profit and loss
· Balance sheet
· Cash flow

Key financial and performance ratios
· Liquidity and solvency
· Performance

The Portuguese POC
(Plano Oficial de Contabilidade)
· The POC structure
· Comparison with American/UK system

Reading annual reports
· Written reports
· Key financial figures
· Notes to accounts

Key principles of business financing
· Risk and return
· Debt and equity
· Gearing and cost of capital

Discounted cash flow
· Opportunity cost and risk
· Cash flow vs. Profit
· DCF principles
· Net present value and internal rate of return

Principles of company and project valuation
· The different valuation methods
· Simplicity vs. thoroughness
· Sensitivity analysis
· Being practical