A manager who cannot read a balance sheet is negotiating a budget with one hand tied behind their back. Financial literacy has quietly become a core management skill, not an optional one, regardless of whether finance sits in the job title.

This Finance for Non-Finance Managers course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy strips away the jargon and shows participants how to read financial statements, manage budgets, evaluate performance and hold their own in conversations with finance teams. The focus stays practical throughout, so participants leave able to apply financial concepts directly to the decisions they make every day.

Who Should Attend?

• Managers and supervisors from non-financial departments.
• Professionals responsible for budget oversight or cost control.
• Mid-level leaders looking to sharpen their financial understanding.
• Project managers who work with financial data or reporting.

What You Will Gain

• A solid grasp of core corporate finance principles.
• The ability to read and analyze financial statements accurately.
• Practical budgeting and forecasting techniques for managerial decisions.
• The skill to evaluate business performance using key financial ratios.
• More confident, effective communication with finance departments and stakeholders.

Module 1: Why Financial Literacy Matters for Every Manager

• The cost of managerial decisions made without financial context.
• The difference between financial and managerial accounting, and where a non-finance manager's responsibility begins.
• How financial fluency changes the way managers plan, budget and communicate with finance teams.

Module 2: Reading the Three Core Financial Statements

• The purpose, structure and relationship between the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement.
• Assets, liabilities and equity, and what they reveal about a company's financial position.
• Revenue, cost of goods sold, margins and profitability on the income statement.
• Common financial terminology managers need to read reports with confidence.

Module 3: Cash Flow and Liquidity

• Why profit and cash flow are not the same thing.
• Operating, investing and financing activities.
• Spotting cash flow problems early and managing liquidity.

Module 4: Planning Ahead: Forecasting and Budgeting

• The purpose of forecasting, its tools, and aligning forecasts with business goals.
• Types of budgets – operational, capital and flexible – and the assumptions behind them.
• Preparing, monitoring and controlling budget performance.

Module 5: Understanding Cost Behavior

• Fixed, variable and mixed costs.
• Break-even analysis and contribution margin.
• How cost behavior should influence managerial decisions.

Module 6: Financial Ratios and Performance Benchmarking

• Liquidity, profitability, efficiency and leverage ratios.
• Benchmarking performance and interpreting ratio results.
• Spotting trends and red flags in financial health early.

Module 7: Turning Financial Insight into Management Decisions

• Linking financial data to strategic goals.
• Assessing project feasibility using financial indicators.
• Making sharper, more defensible decisions through financial awareness.