Let’s Talk Finance

• The workshop is based on the Colour Accounting™ Learning System, the globally-acclaimed approach for effectively building accounting and financial literacy.
• It is used at top-100 law firms, international banks, agencies, industrial companies, and universities in America, Britain, Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Benefits

• Engage and communicate more effectively about financial matters.
• Uncover opportunities for efficiency and profitability at work.
• Make better and more-informed financial decisions.
• Align your goals with the business' goals, to advance your career and grow the business.
• Understand the financial mindset of colleagues, clients, and the CEO to gain credibility as a trusted, business-savvy team member.
• Enjoy a freedom around financial reports and conversation.
• End the repeated cycles of financial training that don’t work.

Foundation workshop – Let’s Talk Finance

• Is a one-day breakthrough introductory finance workshop that delivers unprecedented financial literacy to underpin your business acumen.
• It uses a different and fresh approach called Colour Accounting Learning System, which makes the learning intuitive, logical, and fun.
• The workshop reveals how accounting, finance, and business work, and importantly, how they interrelate.
• You’ll leave able to read a balance sheet and income statement, confidently telling a meaningful financial story that informs decision-making.
• Colour Accounting uses a visual and hands-on approach which has you discover the five essential accounting concepts you must know.
• At the heart of the approach is a concept map that makes the learning easy and effective.
• The diagram and a 3D popup board mean you can focus on the underlying meanings of accounting terms, and explain them with simple, natural examples.

Learning outcomes

Let’s Talk Finance delivers powerful outcomes:

• Truly understand the mechanics and language of accounting.
• Clearly see the fundamental structure of financial statements in a way that makes them readily approachable and usable.
• Be comfortable reading and analysing key financial reports to spot potential commercial issues.
• Engage confidently in financial conversations, asking powerful questions based on a rich understanding of financial elements and an all-encompassing concept framework.
• Understand the relevance and uses of key performance measures, such as Return on Equity.Spot the high-risk areas of financial statements.
• Be conscious of the ambiguities in the language that accountants and financial professionals use, improving communication and reducing misunderstandings.
• Know the difference between important terms and trivial naming conventions.
• Understand how business works as a value generation cycle.

THE FOUNDATION

• The accounting concepts needed for an overview of accrual accounting.
• Learning context and the balance sheet:
  • learning purpose: themes, perspective, and organisational systems
  • uses of funds: assets and asset recognition criteria
  • sources of funds: liabilities and equity
  • the accounting duality: why a balance sheet balances and the accounting equation.
  • financing obligations: distinctions between debt and equity
• The income statement and double entry accounting:
  • basic transactions and double-entry accounting
  • deducing the BaSIS BoardTM: why we need income and expenses.
  • the income statement and how it connects to the balance sheet.
  • introducing accrual accounting: receivables and payables
  • the value cycle of business

THE POPUP BOARD – ACCOUNTING FOR BUSINESS SCENARIOS

• This hands-on learning session reinforces the foundation with additional accounting transactions using our popup board.
• This kinaesthetic learning approach is based on a business simulation to give participants a comprehensive understanding of accrual accounting, including:
  • debt repayments
  • asset and inventory purchases
  • cost of sales
  • revenue recognition
  • the difference between income and cash flow
  • prepayments and deferrals
  • debits and credits
  • depreciation
  • PO’s, ledgers, and journal entries

TELLING A BUSINESS STORY

• This session completes the accounting foundation by exploring financial reporting.
• Participants compile the Trial Balance from their business simulation exercise and then produce their income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.
• Then we:
  • explore the traditional financial statements and reporting layout.
  • tell a story of the business through these financial reports.
  • introduce EBIT, EBITDA, US GAAP and IFRS

How will the course be delivered?

Joy of Accounting

Read more about the Colour Accounting Learning System in the #1 rated accounting book ‘The Joy of Accounting’.

Next Steps

Follow on Modules

• The ‘Let’s Talk Finance’ workshop delivers a potent foundational understanding of accounting.
• This sets you up to easily to easily explore focused topics in ‘Now Let’s Talk’ modules.
• The ‘Now Let’s Talk’ follow on modules range from an hour to a few hours in length.
• The modules include areas like:-
  • Business Analysis
  • Budgeting
  • Cash Management
  • Ratios
  • Industry specific performance measurement
• New modules are being added all the time.

Implementation coaching

• This implementation coaching programme ensures that learning from ‘Let’s Talk Finance’ and ‘Now Let’s Talk’ modules is entrenched as habitual behaviour.
• Through deliberately structured accountability conversations, over a few weeks or
  months, it gives you the space and time to succeed beyond your expectations.