Reporting and Budgeting – Level 2

Key Financial Concepts and principles Covered in Level 1 Course

• Comparison of cash and accrual accounting
• Main features of IFRS and IPSAS
• The key statements according to IFRS and IPSAS
• Overview of the budget processes in public and private sector
• Assessing financial performance

Management Accounting

• Types of management information prepared for internal consumption
• Financial information managers need in order to be able to manage – the power of comparisons
• Historical revenues and profits cost trends product profit margins receivables information budget comparisons break-even analysis and contribution margin analysis

Managing the Costs and Finances of Projects

• The stages of project management – PMBOK® Guide and Prince 2 compared
• Building the Business case and getting approval for funding
• Estimating project costs – expert analogous parametric bottom up estimating etc
• Understanding Gantt charts
• Project forecasts
• Project risks and financial implications

Building an Effective Budget

• Public Sector context of financial management
• Public budgeting seen through four perspectives – political economists accountants managers
• Approaches to budgeting including; line item budgeting program budgeting zero-based budgeting priority-based budgeting
• Three prerequisites for budget preparation
• Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks – aligning budgets

Investment and Risk

• Building an investment portfolio – key questions – WHY are we investing REQUIRED RETURN WHAT do we invest in WHEN do we invest WHERE do we invest
• Five key stages – risk preference asset classes amount to invest in each class choose investments monitor and rebalance
• Fundamental and Technical analysis techniques
• Identification and mitigation of key risks