Cash Flow Planning And Forecasting

Executives are faced with ever-increasing challenges. Flatter corporate structures, global competition, overcapacity, downsizing, and changing business environments have placed enormous demands on managers, calling for greater management skills. Today’s executives wear multiple hats and need multiple skills. Even highly innovative and creative managers with excellent people skills must report their results using financial terms and concepts.

This exciting and informative program will enhance your ability to interpret and use financial information in general and cash flow planning and forecasting in your managerial decision-making. It has been designed to transform the non-financial and finance manager into a more effective team member who can propose, analyze and evaluate financial decisions. It does so by providing a fundamental understanding of the content, concepts, models and terminology of financial systems.

Course Objectives

The Cash Flow Planning and Forecasting Program is designed to help you:

• Understand the principles of finance and how cash is king in all companies
• Learn how to prepare a cash flow statement for your department or company.
• Understand how economic outcomes of business decisions are reflected in your organization’s financial reports.
• Communicate more effectively with the financial executives in your organization.
• Improve your financial vocabulary so that you are better able to understand and interpret financial information.
• Increase your comprehension of current analytical practices and techniques.
• Learn to use financial information in managerial decision-making.
• Understand the impact of operating decisions on financial performance.

If you are a manager of a division, group, or functional area or in any way responsible for reporting the success of your area, this stimulating program could be the most important program you’ll ever attend.

Who Should Attend?

Non-financial and Financial mid to upper level managers in every functional area in all industry types, in both the public and private sectors.

Managers from areas such as marketing, sales, services finance, manufacturing, or engineering, as well as general who use financial data for decision making. Others in a position to influence the design of their organizations’ planning, control, costing, and performance measurement systems. Managers in a position to influence the financial planning process of a company, emerging business, and/or business unit within a large organization.

This program will be helpful to consultants, accountants, auditors, budget analysts, business owners, and practicing professionals who want a better understanding of financial management.

Course Outline

A quick review of the fundamentals: Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow

• Framework and regulations within both financial and management accounts
• Generally accepted accounting practice and the mindset of scorekeepers

Basic business economics revisited

• Cash flow versus profitability
• Fixed, variable, direct and indirect costs
• Break-even analysis – historic and predictive

Review of relative financial performance

• Examination of up-to-date comparative financial performance studies, surveys and reports. Review of industry accepted performance measures and norms, together with recent trends and issues
• Comparison of financial statements – profit & loss, balance sheet and cash flow – with competitor companies and customer’s financial statements
• What financial indicators to look for in customers, and how to manage problems identified

A review of current financial issues for their industry generally

• Financial issues and dynamics underlying the selling of various services
• Managing the eternal triangle of price, volume and market share
• Pricing and costing – setting selling price, estimating volumes, coping with price sensitivity and elasticity of demand

Financial Analysis & Evaluation - Business planning, Cash Forecasting & Financial reports

• An examination of budgets as a breakdown of the strategic plan into manageable interactive activities.  Their use, content and role as part of the cash flow planning and control process
• Review of financial reports as a reflection of the planning and control process
• Traditional analysis of cost structure into fixed and variable cost and the significance of this classification in planning
• The role and limitations of contribution and break-even analysis in short term planning and decision making

Cash and treasury management

• What determines corporate structure, and how is this linked to financial structures
• Role, function and activities of treasury functions
• The Cash flow problems
• Practical tips for better cash flow management
• Cash management within profit, cost and investment centred organizations – pros, cons and pitfalls for the unwary
• Dealing with the shifting emphasis from an income to a cash measured business
• Within joint ventures managers are required to control cash as well as income issues
• Need to establish what the cash/working capital situation would be if a joint venture was a new entity rather than a carry-over from both parents
• How to manage the critical topics of cash and working capital
• Advantages and disadvantages of managing a business entirely on income results
• Advantages and disadvantages of managing entirely on cash, and the strategic impact if this is not managed correctly

Budgeting and Cash Flow

• The traditional approach of rigid annual budgets, standard costs and corresponding variance analysis versus the modem approach of rolling forecasts linked to continuously updated standard costs; what are other businesses doing at the "cutting edge" of budgeting
• Links from budgeting to cash flow forecasting, project appraisal and management information
• What is the impact on a marketing plan if cash and income focuses are not correctly balanced
• For Directors to understand what they need to consider and do differently when managing a business that focuses on cash flow rather than just income
• Projecting cash requirements

Investment Appraisal- Issues and cash flows

• How to determine and plan project cash flows while giving full consideration to the influencing factors and assumptions, which provided the vital basis for analysis in planning and decision making

Investment appraisal - evaluation techniques and cash flows

• Explanation and application of evaluation techniques to projected cash flows in order to determine the financial viability of investment plans and projects. The techniques examined will be (payback, discount cash flow - Net Present Value & Internal Rate of Return)
• Determination and role of the cost of capital in project evaluation
• The program will have a series of breakout sessions, case studies, cash flow and other examples, Question and Answer Sessions.

Course Methodology

A variety of methodologies will be used during the course that includes:

• (30%) Based on Case Studies
• (30%) Techniques
• (30%) Role Play
• (10%) Concepts
• Pre-test and Post-test
• Variety of Learning Methods
• Lectures
• Case Studies and Self Questionaires
• Group Work
• Discussion
• Presentation

Course Fees

This rate includes participant’s manual, Hand-Outs, buffet lunch, coffee/tea on arrival, morning & afternoon of each day.

Course Timings

Daily Course Timings
08:00 - 08:20       Morning Coffee / Tea
08:20 - 10:00       First Session
10:00 - 10:20       Coffee / Tea / Snacks
10:20 - 12:20       Second Session
12:20 - 13:30       Lunch Break & Prayer Break
13:30 - 15:00       Last Session