Finance and Budgeting Essentials for Business Professionals

Good financial judgment can deepen the decision-making skills of any business professional. Fluency with monetary figures helps you tie everyday operations to the financial success of your organization at a department and senior level. Finance and Budgeting Essentials for Business Professionals grounds you in the functions and tools of finance. In this course, you will examine financial statements—including the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, and statement of stockholders' equity—as guides to fiscal health. You will also identify what you want to gain from a budget and describe the steps of budgeting to meet these goals. This course is designed for managers and other professionals in a variety of profit and non-profit organizations who need to use principles of finance or budgeting to fulfill their responsibilities. In this course, you will: describe the importance and major elements of financial statements; use balance sheets to determine the assets a company has at its disposal; interpret income statements to identify corporate earnings, expenses, and profitability; read cash flow and other statements to assess an organization’s real-world financial situation; select a budget type and method to fit the needs of a company; and prepare a responsible budget

• Use financial data to analyze organizational financial health
• Identify budgeting goals and expected outcomes
• Describe steps to prepare budgets effectively
• Analyze balance sheets, income statements, and cash flows
• Interpret profitability indicators and their impact
• Read and evaluate cash flow statements

• Basic computer and internet skills
• Ability to follow English instructions and complete exercises