Financial Acumen for Non-Finance Managers Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Operational Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-FM-113

Before you join: Participants should have experience managing a team, budget line, project, service, commercial activity or operational process.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Managers who do not work in finance still make decisions with financial consequences: approving headcount, setting prices, selecting suppliers, committing capital, managing stock and explaining performance. Without a clear grasp of financial statements, cost behaviour, cash flow and investment appraisal, decisions can improve a local metric while weakening margin, liquidity or return on capital. This course gives managers a practical basis for reading the numbers, questioning assumptions and connecting operational choices to financial results.

Participants examine the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement as connected management tools. They use ratio analysis, DuPont analysis, working-capital measures, driver-based budgeting, contribution analysis, break-even analysis and variance analysis to diagnose performance. The course also covers capital expenditure appraisal using payback, accounting rate of return and net present value; funding choices; financial risk; and clear communication with finance teams, senior managers and budget holders.

The five-day instructor-led programme combines short technical briefings with realistic cases from corporate, public-sector, banking and project-based settings. Participants work with financial reports, operating data, budget assumptions and investment proposals, then discuss the decisions those figures support. Each participant leaves with a financial application plan, practical analysis templates and a structured set of questions for reviewing budgets, forecasts, business cases and management accounts. The course is delivered in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, and includes a certificate of completion.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements for management decisions
  • Calculate profitability, liquidity, efficiency and return ratios from published or internal accounts
  • Build a 13-week rolling cash forecast using operational receipts and payment assumptions
  • Analyse budget variances using price, volume, mix and spending drivers
  • Apply contribution and break-even analysis to pricing, product and service decisions
  • Evaluate investment proposals using payback, accounting rate of return and net present value
  • Assess working-capital performance using receivables, inventory and payables measures
  • Present financially grounded recommendations using evidence, assumptions and decision thresholds

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence challenging budget assumptions and financial recommendations
  • Ability to explain operational performance through margin, cash and return measures
  • Practical methods for preparing stronger funding and investment requests
  • Clearer conversations with finance business partners and senior decision-makers
  • Transferable financial analysis templates for current management responsibilities

For your organisation

  • Better-informed spending, pricing and resource-allocation decisions
  • Earlier identification of cash pressure, margin erosion and budget risk
  • More credible business cases supported by consistent investment appraisal
  • Improved accountability for budget variances and corrective actions
  • Stronger collaboration between operational leaders and finance teams

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can interpret the connections between core financial statements and management actions.

  • How accounting records become management information through the reporting cycle
  • Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement connections
  • Accrual accounting, matching and revenue recognition compared with cash timing
  • Working capital movements traced through operating cash flow
  • Materiality, estimates and accounting policy choices affecting reported performance
  • Management accounts versus statutory financial statements and their different purposes

Participants can diagnose financial performance using ratios, margins and comparative analysis.

  • Read income statements using common-size and period-on-period variance analysis
  • Separate price, volume, mix and foreign-exchange drivers of revenue variance
  • Classify fixed, variable, direct, indirect and semi-variable cost behaviour
  • Calculate gross margin, EBITDA margin and operating margin correctly
  • Identify non-recurring items, provisions and impairments affecting comparability
  • Use DuPont analysis to explain return on equity movements

Participants can assess liquidity and identify operational actions that improve cash conversion.

  • Trace operating, investing and financing cash flows from transaction data
  • Calculate cash conversion cycle using DSO, DIO and DPO
  • Build a 13-week rolling cash forecast from operational assumptions
  • Assess receivables ageing, inventory turns and supplier-payment terms
  • Distinguish profit, cash generation and liquidity under stress
  • Set working-capital actions with owners, timing and cash impact

Participants can build, review and explain budgets and forecasts using operational drivers.

  • Link strategic priorities to revenue, cost, capital and cash budgets
  • Construct driver-based budgets using volumes, prices, staffing and capacity
  • Apply flexible budgeting to separate activity effects from spending variances
  • Interpret actual-versus-budget reports using favourable and adverse variance conventions
  • Forecast year-end results using run-rate, pipeline and revised assumptions
  • Challenge budget submissions for internal consistency, risk and resource trade-offs

Participants can use cost and contribution analysis to support commercial and operating decisions.

  • Select job, process or activity-based costing for decision requirements
  • Allocate overheads using cost pools, drivers and allocation bases
  • Calculate contribution margin and break-even volume for products or services
  • Use relevant-cost analysis for make-or-buy and special-order decisions
  • Recognise sunk costs, opportunity costs and capacity constraints
  • Test pricing decisions against margin floors and cost-to-serve

Participants can select financial measures and explain performance drivers to accountable managers.

  • Design KPIs linking operational drivers to financial outcomes
  • Use Balanced Scorecard perspectives to connect strategy and measures
  • Calculate ROI, ROCE, residual income and economic profit
  • Compare actual performance with plan, prior period and benchmark
  • Distinguish leading indicators from lagging financial measures
  • Build management commentary explaining drivers, risks and corrective actions

Participants can evaluate investment proposals using financial criteria, assumptions and risk tests.

  • Screen investment proposals using strategic fit, risk and financial thresholds
  • Calculate payback period, accounting rate of return and net present value
  • Discount forecast cash flows using discount rates and timing conventions
  • Model sensitivity analysis for volume, price, cost and timing assumptions
  • Compare mutually exclusive projects using NPV and capital-rationing logic
  • Identify qualitative benefits, implementation costs and post-investment review criteria

Participants can discuss funding choices and liquidity risks with appropriate financial awareness.

  • Compare debt, equity and internally generated funds for business investment
  • Explain interest, principal, covenants and refinancing risk in borrowing decisions
  • Assess liquidity headroom using cash forecasts and committed facilities
  • Interpret weighted average cost of capital at a managerial level
  • Recognise how capital structure influences returns, risk and stakeholder expectations
  • Prepare finance questions before approving material commitments

Participants can identify financial risks and establish decision controls for significant commitments.

  • Identify financial risks in revenue, cost, liquidity and investment assumptions
  • Use scenario analysis to quantify downside, base-case and upside outcomes
  • Apply sensitivity tables to isolate key value drivers
  • Set decision thresholds, contingency actions and escalation triggers
  • Assess control weaknesses through segregation of duties and approval limits
  • Document assumptions, evidence sources and decision rationale for governance

Participants can communicate financially sound recommendations and plan their workplace application.

  • Structure investment and performance recommendations using claim, evidence and implication
  • Translate financial results into operational actions for non-financial stakeholders
  • Present variance analysis with charts, narrative and accountable next steps
  • Challenge finance reports using targeted questions on assumptions and materiality
  • Create a 90-day financial application plan for current responsibilities
  • Define measures, review cadence and finance-partner conversations for sustained use

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Financial statement interpretation checklist
  2. 13-week rolling cash forecast template
  3. Driver-based budget and variance analysis model
  4. Contribution and break-even analysis worksheet
  5. Capital investment appraisal template
  6. 90-day financial application plan

Who should attend

  • Operational Managers — make daily decisions affecting cost, cash, capacity and margin
  • Department Heads — own budgets, resources and performance targets
  • Project Managers — assess business cases, forecast costs and control project spend
  • Commercial Managers — evaluate pricing, profitability and customer economics
  • Programme Managers — govern investments, benefits and delivery risks
  • New Senior Managers — need confidence interpreting management accounts and finance reports

Skills and tools covered

Financial statement analysisCash flow forecastingBudget variance analysisCost-volume-profit analysisInvestment appraisalFinancial decision communication

Tools and standards

IFRS, DuPont analysis, Balanced Scorecard, Net present value

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish core concepts, followed by guided analysis of financial statements, management accounts, forecasts and investment proposals. Participants work in groups on realistic decision cases involving budgets, pricing, working capital and capital expenditure. Simulations show how operational changes affect profit, cash and return measures. Facilitated discussions focus on the questions managers should ask of finance reports and business cases. Individual application planning connects course methods to each participant's own budget, project or operating responsibilities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing a team, budget line, project, service, commercial activity or operational process. They should be comfortable working with percentages, basic arithmetic and spreadsheets, although advanced Excel skills are not assumed. Familiarity with their organisation's budget cycle, management reports or approval processes will help participants apply the material quickly. No accounting qualification, finance degree, prior knowledge of IFRS, or experience preparing statutory accounts is required. The course explains essential accounting terms before applying financial methods to management decisions.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need management, project, commercial or operational experience and comfort with basic percentages. An accounting qualification, finance degree and advanced spreadsheet expertise are not required.

Participants should bring a calculator or laptop if available, plus examples of the budgets, reports or decisions they handle. Confidential information should be anonymised before use in class discussions.

The course suits managers who influence budgets, costs, pricing, investment, staffing or operational performance without working as finance specialists. It is particularly relevant for new department heads, project managers and commercial managers.

This course focuses on using financial information to make and challenge management decisions. It does not train participants to prepare statutory accounts, post accounting entries or perform specialist technical accounting work.

Participants can use the templates to review management accounts, investigate variances, improve cash actions and assess investment requests. The application plan identifies immediate conversations and decisions where the methods can be used.

The programme runs from 08:30 to 16:30 daily, with about 6.5 contact hours per day. Time is divided between instructor input, financial analysis, group case work, simulations and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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