Accounting Tools and Metrics for the CFO (Course Id 1459)

Accounting - Accounting for Course Id 1459

This course is a one-stop problem-solver for today’s busy accounting executive. The course is a working guide to help you quickly pinpoint in the complex world of business:

• What to look for
• What to do
• What to watch out for
• How to do it

You’ll find ratios, formulas, guidelines, and rules of thumb to help analyze and evaluate any business-related problem. Throughout, you’ll find this course practical, quick, and useful.

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 take you through accounting principles and guidelines for evaluating a company’s financial health. You will have an increased understanding of various financial statements and their implications. You will be exposed to Corporate Responsibility Law, better known as the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. You’ll learn techniques for analyzing another company’s financial position should you wish to invest, extend credit, or compare. You will also learn how to improve a company’s corporate profitability and shareholder value. We present internal managerial accounting applications to help you evaluate your own company’s performance, profitability, marketing effectiveness, and budgeting process. You’ll learn how to highlight problem areas with variance analysis. You will also learn some valuable new tools, such as activity-based costing (ABC), life-cycle costing, target costing, and corporate balanced scorecard.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 look at financial analysis tools, financial metrics, and financing methods for decision making. Through break-even and sensitivity analysis, you’ll be able to move your company toward greater profits. For investment purposes, this part presents guidelines for evaluating proposals, whether they are short or long-term, for-profit potential and risk-return comparisons. You’ll learn management and financing techniques to ensure the best possible strategies for maximizing and acquiring cash. Also covered are basic financial tenets of portfolio theory, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and the Arbitrage Pricing Model (APM).

Chapter 7 provides you with a deeper understanding of the financing of your company.  A comparison of public versus private placement of securities is provided. You’ll learn the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of long-term debt financing. In addition to the various types of debt instruments, the circumstances in which a particular type of debt is most appropriate are considered. The advantages and disadvantages of issuing preferred and common are discussed, along with the various circumstances in which either financing source is most suited. Stock rights are also described.

Chapter 8 discusses how a forecast relates to financial planning. You’ll learn the components of a forecast and what it predicts. Various forecasting techniques with examples are identified to help you select the right method.

Chapter 9 covers what every accounting professional should know about accounting information systems. The components of an accounting information system, the factors in selecting accounting software, the purpose of extensible business reporting language, and cloud-based accounting are discussed. It also discusses how accounting professionals leverage technology to enable operational improvement and control costs (e.g. the Big Data, robotic process automation, and cloud computing).

This course has been designed in question-and-answer format in order to address the pertinent issues that come up during the course of business. The questions are typical of those asked by persons like you. The answers are clear, concise, and to the point. In short, this is a veritable cookbook of guidelines, illustrations, and “how-to’s” for you, the modern decision maker.

NASBA QAS - Text - Technical - NASBA Registry - 1459

Chapter 1
Financial Statements, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and Corporate Governance

• Identify the objectives of financial reporting and the key elements contained within different financial statements.
• Recognize the purpose and content of the statement of cash flows.
• Identify key sections contained with the annual report.
• Recognize issues addressed by the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) act and the groups impacted by it.

Chapter 2
Financial Performance Measures

• Recognize key financial ratios and how they can be used.
• Calculate the value for different financial ratios.
• Recognize the relationship between margin and turnover.
• Compute ROI and recognize how it can be improved.

Chapter 3
Internal Accounting Applications

• Recognize the concept of Economic Value Added (EVA) and how it can be improved.
• Recognize major elements of budgeting process.
• Identify different attributes and uses of variance analysis as a control device.
• Recognize how accounting systems work, including activity-based costing, life-cycle costing and target costing.
• Recognize the value of a balanced scorecard approach.

Chapter 4
Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis, Operating Leve-rage, and Discounting Analysis

• Recognize the value of cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis in solving business problems.
• Identify some applications of present (discounting) and future (compound) values.

Chapter 5
Long-Term Investment Decisions

• Recognize the uses of capital budgeting.
• Identify the different techniques used to evaluate business investments and their applications.

Chapter 6
Assets Management, Financing Techniques, and Risk Diversifications

• Recognize key elements that affect working capital and cash management.
• Identify how different investment criteria affect managing assets, such as expected returns, risk and diversification.
• Recognize the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Arbitrage Pricing Model (APM).

Chapter 7
Long-Term Debt and Equity Financing

• Identify the process of investment banking.
• Recognize issues for venture capital financing.
• Recognize examples of types of long-term debt and their usefulness.
• Identify examples of equity securities.

Chapter 8
Forecasting: The Key to Decision Making

• Recognize the components of a forecast and what it predicts.
• Identify various forecasting methods.

Chapter 9
Modern Accounting

• Identify components of an accounting information system.
• Recognize the purpose of extensible business reporting language (XBRL).
• Identify the impact of the emerging technologies on the accounting processes.

Chapter 1:   Financial Statements, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and Corporate Governance

Learning Objectives

1.1 The Nature of Financial Statements

1.2 Classified Financial Statements

1.3 Statement of Cash Flows

Chapter 1 Review Questions - Section 1

1.4 Cash Flow Analysis

1.5 Other Sections of the Annual Report

1.6 Interim Financial Reports

1.7 SEC Reporting Requirements

1.8 The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Chapter 1 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 2:    Financial Performance Measures

Learning Objectives

2.1 Methods of Evaluating Financial Performance

2.1.1 Horizontal and Vertical Analysis

2.1.2 Financial Ratios

Chapter 2 Review Questions - Section 1

2.2 Methods of Analyzing Corporate Profitability

2.2.1 Return on Investment

2.2.2 Return on Equity

Chapter 2 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 3:    Internal Accounting Applications

Learning Objectives

3.1 Divisional Performance Analyses

3.2 Contribution Margin Analyses

3.3 Pricing Tools

3.4 Product Line Evaluation

3.5 Measures of Marketing Effectiveness

Chapter 3 Review Questions - Section 1

3.6 Budget System

3.7 Variance Analysis Techniques

3.8 Activity-Based Costing

3.9 Life-Cycle Costs and Target Costing

3.10 Balanced Scorecard

Chapter 3 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 4:    Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis, Operating Leverage, and Discounting Analysis

Learning Objectives

4.1 Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis

4.2 Contribution Margin

4.3 Target Profits

4.4 �What-if� Analysis

4.5 Sales Mix Analysis

4.6 Operating Leverage

Chapter 4 Review Questions - Section 1

4.7 Future and Present Values Analysis

Chapter 4 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 5:    Long-Term Investment Decisions

Learning Objectives

5.1 Capital Budgeting

5.2 Techniques to Evaluate Investment Projects

Chapter 5 Review Questions - Section 1

5.3 Effect of Income Taxes on Investment Decisions

5.4 The Lease - Purchase Decision

5.5 Capital Budgeting and Inflation

Chapter 5 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 6:    Assets Management, Financing Techniques, and Risk Diversifications

Learning Objectives

6.1 Working Capital Management

6.2 Cash Management

6.3 Accounts Receivable Management

6.4 Optimal Investment Strategy

Chapter 6 Review Questions - Section 1

6.5 Financing Techniques

6.6 Business Loan Process

6.7 Short- and Intermediate-Term Financing

6.7.1 Commercial Paper

6.7.2 Receivables for Financing

6.7.3 Inventories for Financing

6.8 Diversifying Risks

6.9 The Capital Asset Pricing Model

6.10 The Arbitrage Pricing Model

Chapter 6 Review Questions - Section 2

Chapter 7:    Long-Term Debt and Equity Financing

Learning Objectives

7.1 Investment Banking

7.2 Publicly and Privately Placed Securities

7.3 Going Public - Initial Public Offerings

7.4 Unregistered Offering

7.5 Venture Capital Financing

7.6 Bond Issuance

7.6.1 Interest Computation

7.6.2 Types of Bonds

7.6.3 Bond Refunding

7.6.4 Other Considerations

7.7 Equity Securities

7.7.1 Preferred Stock

7.7.2 Common Stock

7.8 Financing Strategy

Chapter 7 Review Questions

Chapter 8:    Forecasting: The Key to Decision Making

Learning Objectives

8.1 Overview

8.2 Types of Forecasts

8.3 Selection of a Method

8.4 The Qualitative Approach

8.5 The Quantitative Approach

8.5.1 Naive Models

8.5.2 Moving Averages

8.5.3 Exponential Smoothing

8.5.4 Regression Analysis

8.6 The Accuracy of Forecasts

Chapter 8 Review Questions

Chapter 9:    Modern Accounting

Learning Objectives

9.1 Financial Reporting System

9.1.1 Accounting Information System

9.1.2 Cloud-Based Accounting

9.1.3 Economic Feasibility Study

9.1.4 Extensible Business Reporting Language

9.2 Accounting Transformation

9.2.1 Emerging Technologies

9.2.2 Big Data Analytics

9.2.3 Blockchain Technology

9.2.4 Robotic Process Automation

Chapter 9 Review Questions

Glossary