Finance for Non-Financial Managers
Course record permalink
- Format — Workshop, half day
- Audience — Managers and team leads without a finance background
- Practice area — Business analytics
- Led by — Dr. Kevin Westbrook — background and credentials
Most managers are promoted for what they know about the work, then asked to defend a budget, justify a hire, or explain why a project should continue — in a room where everyone else is reading the numbers. This workshop is built for the manager who has never been taught to read them: what the statements say, which ratios carry the decision, and how to put a proposal in the terms finance already uses. No accounting background is assumed, and no jargon is left standing.
What the workshop covers permalink
- The statements, and what each one is for. The profit and loss account and the balance sheet: what they report, how they relate, and what they cannot tell you.
- The ratios that carry a decision. Gross and operating margin, net income, EBITDA, return on assets and on investment, inventory turns and carrying costs — what each one moves, and which one answers the question in front of you.
- Making the case in financial terms. What a proposal costs, what it returns, and when: the time value of money, net present value, internal rate of return and payback, and a total cost approach rather than a unit price.
- Talking to senior leadership. Presenting a decision the way the finance side already thinks, so the argument is heard instead of translated.
Who it suits permalink
Managers promoted for expertise in sales, operations, or a technical function who now carry a budget and have to justify it. It also suits sales leaders who argue value with procurement and finance teams. It assumes no prior training in accounting.
What a manager leaves with permalink
A way to read the statements that does not depend on someone else's summary, a small set of ratios they can use on their own numbers, and a business case they can build and defend — cost, return, timing and risk, in that order. The test is a meeting they already have on the calendar.