EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

The Essentials of Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers
 

 

Description This three-day program will help you understand how to read, interpret and analyze financial statements. You'll also learn forecasting and financial planning approaches to help you with the budgeting process. You'll get the basics of net present value and capital budgeting techniques to apply when evaluating projects. You'll gain an understanding of various types of costs and how to allocate them to truly understand the financial performance of a business unit. Ultimately, you'll learn to use financial information to make better strategic business decisions.

“Outstanding course. Essential for professionals who want to tackle the challenges of corporate accounting.” Kevin Lightfoot Business Partner Corporate Communications EDS Corporation Plano, Texas

Who should attend 

• Anyone seeking a better understanding of basic finance and accounting
• Managers at all levels who work in non-financial area
• Leaders in line for positions with more financial responsibility
• Technical managers with profit/loss or budget responsibility

Topics

• Fundamental accounting and finance concepts
• An introduction to financial statements
• Defining and using key financial ratios to assess the company’s performance
• Using accounting and financial data to plan for the future
• Understanding commonly used investment analysis techniques
• Understanding cost/volume/ profit relationships
• Performance metrics and measurement-based strategy implementation and performance evaluation

Benefits

• Understand the fundamentals of finance and accounting
• Read and interpret balance sheets, income statements and cash flow statements
• Use accounting and financial information to evaluate the performance of your company and your competitors
• Make better business decisions
• Assess and select projects and investments using basic principles of finance
• Understand fixed costs, variable costs, break-even analysis and contribution margin
• Make a valuable contribution to your company’s financial decisions

Faculty

Jody Magliolo, Ph.D., is professor and distinguished chair in accounting. Magliolo taught accounting in the undergraduate and MBA programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the Wharton School before joining Southern Methodist University. Magliolo’s primary teaching interests lie in the areas of financial accounting and financial statement analysis. His dissertation examined oil and gas firms’ “reserve recognition accounting” disclosures. These disclosures, included as a part of oil and gas firms’ annual reports, value firms oil and gas reserves using rules specified by accounting policymakers. Subsequent research analyzed the relations between proved reserve disclosures in the financial statements and the valuation of oil and gas firms. Magliolo’s excellence in the classroom has been recognized with teaching awards for graduate student instruction at Wharton and SMU. He is also the recipient of the Cox 1995 MBA Distinguished Teaching Award and the 1996 Research Excellence Award. Magliolo’s current research focuses on the interaction of financial accounting and regulatory issues in banks and insurance companies. He has published articles in the “Journal of Accounting Research,” the “Journal of Accounting and Economics,” the “Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance,” and “The Accounting Review,” where he has served as a member of the editorial board. He earned a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Texas and served as a process engineer for Union Carbide. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Texas and a doctor of philosophy degree from Stanford University.

Hemang Desai, Ph.D., is the Robert B. Cullum Professor of Accounting. He teaches intermediate accounting to undergraduates and mergers and acquisitions to graduate business students. His teaching has been recognized with multiple awards in the undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs. He is also the recipient of SMU’s Golden Mustang Outstanding Faculty Award, which honors faculty members for excellence in both scholarship and teaching. Desai’s recent research examines issues related to quality of earnings and the behavior of short sellers. His past research has examined the performance of money managers and analysts, as well as spin-offs and mergers and other corporate restructuring transactions. His articles have been published in top academic and practitioner journals, including the “Journal of Finance,” the “Journal of Financial Economics,” “The Accounting Review,” the “Journal of Business,” and “Financial Analysts Journal.” His writings have also been the subject of columns in a range of leading publications, including “The Wall Street Journal,” “Barron’s,” and the “New York Times.” Desai holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of New Orleans and a doctor of philosophy from Tulane University

Dr. Jeff Austin is a Senior Lecturer of Accounting at SMU's Cox School of Business where he teaches managerial accounting, management control systems, tax accounting, and auditing in the graduate and undergraduate programs. In 2004, he received the Cox BBA Outstanding Teaching Award. He is a CPA and holds an MSA and a PhD degree from the University of Georgia. Formerly he was a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma where he was recognized with teaching awards. He has written articles for The Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Journal of the American Taxation Association, and Financial Services Review. Prior to SMU, he was employed by Arthur Andersen and Price Waterhouse