Course Objectives

In today’s world, there is more importance given to financial planning and analysis. Professionals are expected by top management to provide proper information and analysis for decision making and to be equipped with the proper tools to do so. Management needs to have confidence in what the financial professionals are presenting in the company’s budgets and forecasts. Now, you have the chance to certify your credentials and expertise in the field of budgeting, forecasting, financial planning and analysis through the Association of Financial Professional (AFP). AFP’s Certified Corporate Financial Planning & Analysis Professional is a designation well worth your time and investment. It’s a two parts exam that are available online. This course provides an overview of the main concepts so you can pass the exam and stand out from the rest of the crowd.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Identify proper sources for gathering information about the company and its industry and apply the basic concepts of macro economics and strategic planning
• Define main financial and micro economic concepts and identify types of budgets
• Perform financial analysis and variance analysis and draw conclusions
• Build financial projections, evaluate capital expenditures and investments and create what-if analysis
• Utilize advanced spreadsheet functions, e.g. value lookup, pivot tables, macros, etc.

Content

• Gathering and interpreting information
  • Sources of historical information and historical financial data and corporate structure and functions
  • Sources of information about a company’s business environment (e.g. business models, financial ratios, and industry metrics)
  • Reading and interpreting corporate annual reports
  • Determining peer groups and competitors
  • Basic macro-economic concepts used in financial planning (e.g., consumer price index, gross domestic product, exchange rates, interest rates, inflation rates, economic indicators, etc.)
  • Implications of tax policies on projections
  • Risk factors and risk management concepts
    • Value at risk
    • Hedging
    • Insurance
    • Interest rate risk
    • Diversification
  • Financial and non-financial key performance indicators
  • Strategic planning concepts and frameworks
    • SWOT analysis
    • Porter’s five forces model
    • Growth share matrix
  • Determining information needs of and gather information from internal/external stakeholders and business partners
  • Tools for information gathering (e.g., templates, surveys, etc.)
• Understanding financial concepts and communicating/coordinating work with other professionals
  • Finance principles and processes (e.g., financial management concepts, corporate finance activities, etc.)
  • General financial concepts and common financial formulas (e.g., time value, opportunity costs, debt structures and covenants, earnings per share, cost of capital, etc.)
  • Financial accounting concepts, principles, and practices
  • Interactions/interrelationships of common financial statements
  • Basic micro-economics (e.g., marginal costs, pricing, price elasticity of supply and demand, etc.)
  • Managerial accounting/reporting and cost accounting concepts
    • Costs throughout the production process
    • Fixed and variable costs
    • Cost allocation
    • Contribution margins
  • Types of budgets/forecasts (e.g., zero-based budgets, annual budgets, rolling forecasts, etc.) and their applications
  • Financial close process, including the resulting financial reporting activities, and the role of the FP&A function in the close/reporting process
  • General business terminology, practices, and processes (e.g., compensation structures, performance management, stock options, etc.)
  • Defining, coordinating, and communicating project/work flow elements (e.g., deadlines, deliverables, expectations, etc.)
  • Effective communication and presentation techniques (e.g., building alliances, resolving communication issues, determining appropriate presentation techniques, preparing reports, using charts/graphs, etc.)
• Analyzing information
  • Determining the applicability/acceptability of tools, processes, models, etc.
  • Testing and validating a model (e.g., cross-footing, consistency testing, reasonableness assessment, etc.)
  • Identifying outliers in data and determining the causes
  • Developing assumptions, drawing conclusions, assessing the reasonableness of assumptions/conclusions, and testing conclusions against various scenarios
  • Financial ratio analysis (e.g., debt/equity, accounts receivable days, liquidity ratios, etc.)
  • Variance analysis and reporting (e.g., actuals versus prior periods, actuals versus plan, actuals versus forecast, etc.)
  • Competitive analysis (e.g., benchmarking, peer group analysis, ratios, etc.)
  • Determining and assessing the seasonality of an industry or business
  • Common statistical concepts

• Building financial projections
  • Financial statement projections (e.g., income statement, cash flow statement, balance sheet, etc.)
  • Capital expenditure/investment analysis
    • Discounted cash flow analysis
    • Return on investment projections
    • Net present value projections
  • Sales volume/revenue projections
  • Expense and head count (staffing) projections
  • Specific customer/deal/product projections
  • “What-if” scenarios, sensitivity analysis and risk analysis
• Using technology/software
  • Basic and advanced spreadsheet functions
    • Financial functions
    • Pivot tables
    • Value lookups
    • Macros
    • Integration with other common software
  • Common statistical calculations (e.g., standard deviation, expected value, correlation, regression, means, modes, etc.) using a spreadsheet
  • Documenting and maintaining models (e.g., understand documentation concepts, document assumptions, create supporting information and protocols, document functionality and structure, use software/data version control concepts and techniques, etc.)
  • Common database structures, common database functions, and structure/ functions of common financial software/systems

• • • Business intelligence software
    • Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems
    • General ledger systems

Course Target

All accounting and finance professionals who are currently working, or seeking to work, in the financial planning, analysis, budgeting and forecasting domain within their organizations.