Belgium: Finance for non-financial managers

Learn financial skills to improve organisational and programme impact

Sound financial management is crucial to the success of any organisation or programme. And the principles are not difficult to learn and apply when they are explained in a non-threatening, jargon-free, and positive way. This course starts with the basics of finance and gradually gives you a thorough working knowledge of finance and financial management techniques. We use a mixture of approaches including short inputs, discussions, participatory group work, games and individual activities to provide the practical skills to recognise and use financial information.

You will gain confidence so you can communicate about finance with accountants and other stakeholders. This learning is grounded in innovative research and we share practical experience of communicating finance across cultures nationally and internationally. The training includes a range of written materials to use when you return to your organisation’s activities, including the trainer’s book ‘Communicating Financial Management’, a manual for international development workers.

Why choose this course

If your work involves working with financial information and systems, and yet you have not had or had very little finance training, this course is designed for you. Whether you work for the UN, government, NGO or private sector this training course really does build up from the basics, encouraging you to use your new financial skills confidently and competently and make better decisions. The course gives you a strong working knowledge of finance and financial management to give immediate benefits, which you can take back to your own as well as partner organisations.

What you will learn

The practical participatory sessions use a balance of short inputs, discussions, participatory group work, games and individual activities, where you learn how to:

• apply financial management within different settings using interactive case studies and examples.
• plan and monitor budgets, using financial information to make good decisions
• assess and implement robust financial systems and assess risk, and
• manage finance to maximise impact within your organisation and programmes. It also includes innovative teaching and learning about how to communicate the financial management with colleagues, across the world and across your office.

Daily Course Objectives

• Day 1

  Financial management and budget planning

  • overview of financial management in non-profit organisations
  • all you need to know about budgeting for non-profits
  • budget planning and case study

• Day 2

  Budget monitoring, cash flow, and accounting ground rules

  • budget monitoring and managing cash flow
  • achieving value for money
  • ground rules of accounting and finance

• Day 3

  Analysing financial information

  • building blocks of financial records and systems
  • making sense of the financial statements
  • working with auditors and accountants

• Day 4

  Building financial capacity

  • strategic financial management – core costs and reserves
  • assess and reduce financial and organisational risk and uncertainty
  • implement financial controls and strategies to avoid fraud
  • financial capacity building case study

• Day 5

  Communicating between finance and non-finance people

  • challenges of communicating about finance
  • practical solutions grounded in innovative research, for when working with both ‘finance’ and ‘non-finance’ cultures, and communicating about finance across international cultures
  • working with different stakeholders on finance issues.

Tuition fee: £2100

Apply online: http://www.imainternational.com/training_selection