39 Budgeting courses in Leeds

An insightful, enjoyable and experiential programme to help you analyse data and information and make a balanced decision based upon sound commercial reasoning. It will enable you to identify options, make decisions and take actions based on a thorough analysis combined with instinct and intuition to make a positive effect on profitability. This programme will help you: * Identify ways to analyse data and sort relevant from irrelevant information * Develop analytical and numerate thinking, and consider the financial implications of a decision * Make decisions based on sound commercial reasoning - a mix of intuition and analysis * Select from a range of tools to analyse a situation and apply these effectively * Understand how costs and profits are calculated * Use tried-and-tested techniques to manage and control your budgets * Appreciate the fundamentals of financial analysis * Focus on the bottom line * Identify the basics of capital investment appraisal for your business * Evaluate results and seek opportunities for improvement to your business 1 THE COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENT * What do shareholders and investors want? * What do managers want? * Profit v non-profit organisations * Investor expectations 2 FINANCIAL AND NON-FINANCIAL INFORMATION * Risk and reward considerations * Drivers of commercial decisions 3 RUNNING A BUSINESS * A practical exercise to bring financial statements to life * Different stakeholder interests in a business * The impact and consequences of decisions on financial statements 4 WHERE DO I MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO THE ORGANISATION? * How can I contribute to an improved business performance? * Key performance indicators - measuring the right things * A 'balanced scorecard' approach - it's not all about money! 5 A 'BALANCED SCORECARD' APPROACH * Analysing and reviewing my contribution to the business direction * What is the current focus of my commercial decisions? * Developing the business in the right way - getting the balance right! * Where should/could it be in the future? * Do my decisions support the overall vision and strategy? 6 MAKING COMMERCIAL DECISIONS * Left-brain and right-brain thinking * Convergent and divergent thinking * Analysis and instinct * Interactive case study exercise - emotional and rational decisions * Reflection - what is my style of making decisions 7 LET'S CONSIDER THE CUSTOMER! * Identifying target markets * Differentiating propositions and products * Customer service considerations * Marketing considerations and initiatives * Pricing strategies and considerations 8 STRATEGIC ANALYSIS * The external environment * The internal environment * LEPEST analysis * SWOT analysis * Forecasting * Group activity - analysing markets and the competition * How do these improve your decisions? 9 COMPARING PERFORMANCE * Analysing key financial ratios * Ways to compare performance and results * Break-even analysis 10 PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNTS AND BUDGETING * Managing income and expenditure * The budgeting process * How does this link to the profit and loss account? * Managing and controlling a cost centre/budget * The role of the finance department * Different ways of budgeting * Incremental budgeting * Zero-based budgeting 11 UNDERSTANDING THE BALANCE SHEET * Purpose of balance sheets * Understanding and navigating the content * What does a balance sheet tell you? * How do you affect your balance sheet? * Links to the profit and loss account * A practical team exercise that brings financial statements to life 12 BUSINESS DECISIONS EXERCISE * How does this improve your decisions? * A practical exercise to apply new knowledge and bring commercial thinking to to life * The impact and consequences of decisions on financial statements 13 WORKING CAPITAL * Why is this important? * The importance of keeping cash flowing * Business decisions that affect cash * Calculating profit 14 CAPITAL INVESTMENT APPRAISAL * Capex v Opex * Payback * Return on investment * The future value of money * The concept of hurdle rate 15 LESSONS LEARNED AND ACTION PLANNING * So what? * Recap and consolidation of learning * The decisions that I need to consider * Actions to achieve my plan

Finance doesn't have to be a puzzle. And if you want to get anywhere with your career, it had better not be! Whatever your role, you have an impact on the financial wellbeing of the organisation you work for, whether you've got specific financial responsibilities or not. This thoroughly practical, fun and enjoyable one-day workshop will help unpuzzle finance for you. It's an ideal opportunity to master the terminology, get to grips with the concepts, learn how 'the finance department' works and understand the part you play. This course will help participants: * Appreciate the role and importance of Finance within organisations * Be able to recognise and describe some of the common items and jargon used * Identify the elements of the Profit & Loss and the Balance Sheet * Understand cashflow * Make better decisions * Manage budgets 1 INTRODUCTION * Expectations * Terminology * Key financial principles * Accruals * Consistency * Prudence * Going concern 2 THE THREE MAIN FINANCIAL STATEMENTS * Profit & Loss account * Income * Cost of sales * Gross profit * Administrative expenses ('overheads') * Net profit/(loss) for the financial year (the 'bottom line') * P&L format * Balance Sheet * Terminology * Fixed Assets * Current Assets * Current Liabilities * Long-term Liabilities * Capital * B/S format * Cashflow Statement * Financial and management information systems 3 BUDGETS AND FORECASTS * Why budget? * Types of budget - incremental or zero-based * Budgeting for costs - fixed and variable * Budgeting for income * An eight point plan for budgeting for your department * Case study: Small Brother Ltd * Problems and solutions 4 ACCRUALS * Accruals - what and why? * Prepayments 5 OPEN FORUM

Businesses that don't control their costs don't stay in business. How well are you doing? Is everyone in your organisation sufficiently aware of costs, managing them effectively and maximising opportunities to reduce them? If there is scope for improvement, this course will help get you back on track. It will demonstrate that cost reduction is so much more than cost control and cost cutting. True cost management is about being aware of costs, seeking to reduce them through good design and efficient operating practices whilst taking continuing action on overspending. This course will develop the participants' skills in: * Being aware of costs at all times * Seeking cost reduction from the start (including life-cycle costing) * Appraising projects / production to identify and take out risk * Understanding real budgeting * Using techniques such as ZBB and ABC where appropriate * Ensuring cost reports lead to action * Managing a cost reduction process that delivers Benefits to the organisation will include: * Identification of cost reduction and business improvement opportunities * Better reporting and ownership of costs * Greater awareness and control of everyday costs 1 INTRODUCTION - THE COST MANAGEMENT PROCESS * The risks of poor cost control * Capital and revenue costs * The importance of cost awareness * The importance of cost reduction * Cost management - the key aspects * How to build a cost management and control process checklist for your areas of responsibility 2 COST REMOVAL - TAKING OUT COSTS * Cost awareness * Costs of poor design / poor processes * Value engineering * Removing redundant costs 3 THE NEED FOR COMMERCIAL, TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL APPRAISALS * Understand the problems before cash is committed and costs incurred * Making the effort to identify commercial and technical risk * The time value of money - DCF techniques for long term projects * Cost models for production processes and projects * Costing models - project appraisals * The use of spreadsheets to identify sensitivity and risk * How to focus on risk management 4 BUDGETING - PROPER BUDGETING CHALLENGES COSTS * The philosophy of the business - are costs an issue? * The importance of having the right culture * The need for detailed business objectives * Budgetary control measures * Designing budget reports - for action 5 ZERO-BASED BUDGETING (ZBB) - THE PRINCIPLES * Much more than starting with a clean sheet of paper * What ZBB can achieve * The concept of decision packages - to challenge business methods and costs * Only necessary costs should be incurred * A review of an operating budget - demonstrating what ZBB challenges and the costs it may lead to being taken out 6 AWARENESS OF OVERHEADS AND OTHER COSTS * Definitions of cost - direct and indirect * Dealing with overheads - what is meant by allocation, absorption or apportionment? * The apparent and real problems with overheads * Different ways of dealing with overheads * Review of overhead allocation methods and accounting and reporting issues 7 OVERHEADS AND PRODUCT COSTING * Activity-based costing (ABC) - the principles * Where and how the ABC approach may be helpful * Know the 'true' cost of a product or a project * Should you be in business? Will you stay in business? * Identifying weaknesses in a traditional overhead allocation * How ABC will help improve product or service costing * Identifying which products and activities should be developed and which abandoned 8 COST REDUCTION CULTURE * The need for cost reports * What measures can be used to identify over-spends as early as possible * Cost control performance measures and ratios 9 DESIGN OF COST CONTROL REPORTS * Reports should lead to action and deliver * Selecting cost control measures which can be acted upon * Practice in designing action reports 10 COURSE SUMMARY - DEVELOPING YOUR OWN COST ACTION PLAN * Group and individual action plans will be prepared with a view to participants identifying their cost risks areas and the techniques which can be immediately applied to improve costing and reduce costs

What do engineers and project managers need to know of finance? 'Nothing - leave it to the accountants!' No, no, no! Engineers must be conversant with the terminology and statements that accountants use. Technical expertise in projects, service delivery, production or other areas can only really be harnessed if the managers understand the accounting and reporting that drives businesses. This course gives the necessary understanding to project, production and technical managers. It develops their skills in understanding financial and management accounting. Accountants may not always like it but a major part of their work is to be the 'servants of business' and to gather, compile and present your figures. So you must understand the figures - they belong to you, your processes or projects. There are many reasons for maintaining accurate accounts. This course focuses on the strategic issues (those over-used words) - what figures reveal about the drivers of business and what they reveal about the day-to-day issues that accountants bother you with. The course will enhance your understanding of finance and of the accounting issues which affect your projects, production and technical areas of business. This course will help you: * Understand the business world in figures - make sense of what the accountants are telling you * Appreciate what drives business - and how this affects your role in your part of the business * Relate your activities to the success of the business - through figures * Gain the skills to advance in management - financial awareness is a 'must have' if you are to progress in your career 1 WHAT DO ACCOUNTANTS DO? * The finance function, types of accountant, financial v management accounting and the treasury function * Understanding the role of the finance function and how the information you provide may be used 2 THE BASIC FINANCIAL STATEMENTS * Balance sheets and income statements (P&L accounts) * What they are, what they contain and above all what they can reveal - how to read them * The accounting process - from transactions to financial statements * What underpins the statements - accounting systems and internal controls 3 WHY BE IN BUSINESS - FROM A FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE * The driving forces behind financial information * Performance measures - profitability, asset utilisation, sales and throughput, managing capital expenditure 4 ACCOUNTING RULES - ACCOUNTING STANDARDS * Accounting concepts and the accounting rules: accruals, 'going concern' - substance over form and other 'desirable qualities' * Accruals - why the timing of a transaction is so important to the finance function * Depreciation and amortisation - the concepts and practice * Accounting standards - the role of International Financial Reporting Standards 5 CASH * The importance of cash flow - working capital management * Cash flow statements - monitoring overall cash flows * Raising cash - levels of borrowing, gearing * Spending cash - an outline of capital expenditure appraisal 6 BUDGETING * Why budget? - good and bad practice * Determining why budgets play a key role and should not be simply an annual ritual * Justifying your budgets - the link between the strategic plan and day-to-day budgeting - alignment of company culture * Budgets as motivators - the importance of the right culture * Techniques to improve budgeting - whether day-to-day or capital budgeting 7 COSTING * The type and detail of costing very much depends on your business - eg, manufacturing piston rings is quite different from the construction of a power plant * Issues with overhead allocation * Accounting for R&D 8 READING FINANCIAL STATEMENTS * Annual financial statements - why they are produced, what's in them and what you should look for * Learning what a set of accounts reveals about a company's current situation, profitability and future prospects 9 PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT - ANALYTICAL REVIEWS AND RATIO ANALYSIS * ROI/ROCE * Profitability, margins and cost control * Sales - asset turnover * Efficiency (asset / stock turnover, debtor / creditor days) * 'City' measures * Investment (interest / dividend cover, earnings per share, dividend yield)

No-one in business will succeed if they are not financially literate - and no business will succeed without financially-literate people. This is the ideal programme for managers and others who don't have a financial qualification or background but who nonetheless need a greater understanding of the financial management disciplines essential to your organisation. This course will give the participants a sound understanding of financial reports, measures and techniques to make them even more effective in their roles. It will enable participants to: * Overcome the barrier of the accountants' strange language * Deal confidently with financial colleagues * Improve their understanding of your organisation's finance function * Radically improve their planning and budgeting skills * Be much more aware of the impact of their decisions on the profitability of your organisation * Enhance their role in the organisation * Boost their confidence and career development 1 REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL STATEMENTS * What each statement contains * Outline * Detail * Not just what the statements contain but what they mean * Balance sheets and P&L accounts (income statements) * Cash flow statements * Detailed terminology and interpretation * Types of fixed asset - tangible, etc. * Working capital, equity, gearing 2 THE 'RULES' - ACCOUNTING STANDARDS, CONCEPTS AND CONVENTIONS * Fundamental or 'bedrock' accounting concepts * Detailed accounting concepts and conventions * What depreciation means * The importance of stock, inventory and work in progress values * Accounting policies that most affect reporting and results * The importance of accounting standards and IFRS 3 WHERE THE FIGURES COME FROM * Accounting records * Assets / liabilities, Income / expenditure * General / nominal ledgers * Need for internal controls * 'Sarbox' and related issues 4 MANAGING THE BUDGET PROCESS * Have clear objectives, remit, responsibilities and time schedule * The business plan * Links with corporate strategy * The budget cycle * Links with company culture * Budgeting methods * 'New' budgeting * Zero-based budgets * Reviewing budgets * Responding to the figures * The need for appropriate accounting and reporting systems 5 WHAT ARE COSTS? HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR THEM * Cost definitions * Full / absorption costing * Overheads - overhead allocation or absorption * Activity based costing * Marginal costing / break-even - use in planning 6 WHO DOES WHAT? A REVIEW OF WHAT DIFFERENT TYPES OF ACCOUNTANT DO * Financial accounting * Management accounting * Treasury function * Activities and terms 7 HOW THE STATEMENTS CAN BE INTERPRETED * What published accounts contain * Analytical review (ratio analysis) * Return on capital employed, margins and profitability * Making assets work - asset turnover * Fixed assets, debtor, stock turnover * Responding to figures * EBIT, EBITEDIA, eps and other analysts' measure 8 OTHER KEY ISSUES * Creative accounting * Accounting for groups * Intangible assets - brand names * Company valuations * Fixed assets / leased assets / off-balance sheet finance

Running a successful project requires skills in planning, budgeting, tracking deliverables and stakeholder management. An area that can be neglected by project managers is the 'people side' - not the project team themselves but the end-users, those who will be affected by the project. Too often there is a single line at the end of the project plan that says 'Comms and Training'. If people are going to have to work differently and learn some new processes, then there is work to be done by the project team to help them through the emotional side of the change. This session explores why it's important to bring people along when a change is being made. It will provide project teams with the skills and knowledge either to manage the people change plan themselves or to secure the right resources for their project. * Understand the importance of the 'people side' of change * 8 'Golden Rules' of change management - overview * How to create a simple but effective change plan * Adoption * Benefits of good change management 1 INTRODUCTION * Objectives and agenda * People and projects - why is it important? * The Change Curve - the emotional side of change 2 8 'GOLDEN RULES' OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT - INCLUDING... * Role of the sponsor * Communication * Resistance to change 3 CHANGE PLAN * Elements of a change plan * Change impact assessment * Alignment with the project plan 4 ADOPTION * Who owns the change? * The vital role of the manager * Feedback and action loops 5 BENEFITS * Estimating the costs / benefits 6 NEXT STEPS * Summary of key learning points * Reflection on next steps 7 CLOSE

Understanding how to plan for capacity, be able to forecast and manage budgets is a critical skill in today's leadership and management environment. This programme will not only support your understanding but will also help you to practically put the learning into practice.

This half day course is designed for new treasurers, general trustees and management committee members or staff who work in smaller organisations to understand the basics of how to manage the finances within a voluntary or community organisation. It covers all the essential issues ranging from drawing up a budget to ensuring that the organisation has sound financial procedures.

Masterclasses? Refreshers? Introductions? It depends what you're looking for and where you want to pitch them, but here are six tried-and-tested highly focused sessions that organisations can take individually or as a series, to help develop their teams' project management capabilities one topic at a time. Objectives for each individual session are set out below, as part of the session outlines. Taken together, as a series, however, these modules are an ideal opportunity to develop your team's levels of project management capability maturity, whether that's by introducing them to the basic principles, refreshing them on best practice, or giving them the opportunity to really drill down into a specific area of challenge in your particular operating environment. SESSION OUTLINES 1 Stakeholder management SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand why stakeholders matter to projects * Be able to identify and engage stakeholders * Be able to categorise stakeholders by their significance 1 KEY PRINCIPLES * What does 'stakeholder' mean - in theory? * What does this mean in practice? * Why stakeholders matter * Consequences of missing stakeholders * The stakeholder management process: * Identify * Assess * Plan * Engage 2 IDENTIFYING STAKEHOLDERS * Rapid listing * CPIG analysis * PESTLE analysis * Drawing on the knowledge and experience of others * Other ways to identify stakeholders 3 ASSESSING STAKEHOLDERS * Which stakeholders are significant? * Stakeholder radar * Power-interest maps * Power-attitude maps 4 PLANNING * The adoption curve * Dealing with obstacles * Who should engage which stakeholder? * How should the project's organisation be structured? * How will communication happen? 5 ENGAGING * Seven principles of stakeholder engagement 2 Requirements and prioritisation SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand how clarity of requirements contributes to project success * Use different techniques for prioritising requirements * Agree requirements with stakeholders * Manage changes to requirements 1 UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING STAKEHOLDER NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS * What are 'requirements'? * What is 'requirements management'? * Sources of requirements - and the role of stakeholders * Are stakeholders sufficiently expert to specify their needs? * Do they understand the detail of what they want, or do they need help to tease that out? * What do stakeholders want to achieve? * Working within constraints * Prioritising requirements - three techniques 2 MOSCOW PRIORITISATION * 'Must have', should have', 'could have, 'won't have this time' * When to use MoSCoW 3 THE KANO MODEL * Customer satisfaction - 'attractive' and 'must-be' qualities * When to use Kano 4 VALUE-BASED PRIORITISATION * Understanding risk v value * Using risk v value to prioritise features and schedules 5 AGREEING REQUIREMENTS * Perfect v 'good enough' * Establishing acceptance criteria * Requirements traceability * Agreeing project scope 6 CHANGING REQUIREMENTS * Why requirements change * Why change control matters * Impact on projects * A formal change control process * Paying for change - managing change for different types of project 3 Estimating SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand the different purposes estimates satisfy * Be able to use different estimating techniques * Understand how to achieve different levels of accuracy 1 KEY PRINCIPLES * What's an estimate? Informed guesswork * What needs to be estimated? Costs, resources, effort, duration * Tolerances * Precision v accuracy 2 ESTIMATING THROUGH THE LIFECYCLE * Start * Plan * Do 3 EARLY ESTIMATES * Comparative ('analogous') estimating * Parametric estimating * Using multiple estimating techniques 4 BOTTOM-UP ESTIMATING * Bottom-up ('analytical') estimating * Pros * Cons 5 THREE-POINT ESTIMATING * Three-point ('PERT': Programme Evaluation and Review Technique) estimating * Uncertainty and the range of estimates * Calculating a weighted average * Three-point with bottom-up 4 Scheduling SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand how to create a viable schedule * Be able to use different forms of schedule * Understand the concept of the critical path 1 KEY PRINCIPLES * The planning horizon * Rolling wave planning * Release planning 2 VIABLE SCHEDULING * Creating a viable schedule * Define the scope * Sequence the work * Identify the risks and build in mitigations * Identify the resources * Estimate the effort and durations * Check resource availability * Refine until a workable schedule is produced 3 CRITICAL PATH ANALYSIS * The critical path * Network diagrams * Sequence logic * Practical application: * Network diagram with estimated durations * The 'forward pass' * The 'backward pass' * Calculating total float * Identifying the critical path * Calculating free float * Gantt charts 5 Risk and issue management SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand the difference between risks and issues * Be able to identify and assess risks * Understand ways of mitigating risks * Manage issues 1 KEY PRINCIPLES * Understanding risk * Threats and opportunities * The risk management process * Preparation - proactive risk management * The process - identify, assess, plan, implement * Stakeholder communication * Roles and responsibilities * Risk management strategy * The risk register * Risk appetite 2 RISK IDENTIFICATION * Brainstorming * Interviews * Assumption analysis * Checklists 3 RISK ASSESSMENT AND PRIORITISATION * Probability, impact and proximity * Triggers * Qualitative risk assessment * Qualitative impact assessment * Qualitative probability assessment * Probability / impact grid * Bubble charts * Risk tolerance 4 PLANNING COUNTERMEASURES * To mitigate or not to mitigate? * Categories of risk response * Avoid and exploit * Reduce and enhance * Transfer * Share * Accept * Contingency * Secondary risks 5 ISSUE MANAGEMENT * What is an issue? * Tolerances * Issues and tolerances * The PRINCE2 view of issues * Ownership of issues * An issue management process * Issue register 6 Budgeting and cost control SESSION OBJECTIVES This session will help participants: * Understand what to include in a budget - and why * Choose - and use - the appropriate estimating technique * Align the budget with the schedule * Understand how to monitor spend and control costs * Trouble-shoot effectively to get projects back within budget SESSION FORMAT Flexible. The session can be tailored to the participants' average level of project management maturity - a 60-minute session (delivered virtually) is an effective introduction. A 90-minute session allows for more in-depth treatment. A half-day session (face-to-face or virtual) gives time for a more challenging workshop, particularly to discuss specific cost control issues with any of the participants' current projects. 1 WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM? * Can we pay from revenue? Do we need to borrow? How long will the project take to pay back? * The lifecycle of the budget * Through-life costs * Stakeholder involvement 2 ESTIMATING COSTS * Reminder: the relationship between estimates * Reminder: possible estimating techniques * What do we need to estimate? * People * Equipment * Materials * Facilities and operating costs * Work package estimate * Estimated project costs * Estimating agile projects 3 ALIGNING BUDGET AND SCHEDULE * Scheduling and financial periods * Spreading the budget 4 RESERVES AND AGREEING THE BUDGET * Contingency reserve * Management reserve * Agreeing the budget 5 COST CONTROL * Planned spend over time * Actual spend over time * Work completed over time * Evaluating different scenarios: delivery v spend 6 TROUBLE-SHOOTING * Why are we where we are? * What has caused the project to spend at the rate it is? * Why is it delivering at the rate it is? * What are the root causes? * What can we do about it?