Every major company decision — from a new investment to how a project gets financed — ultimately runs through the same finance and accounting fundamentals. Managers who don't have a working grasp of those fundamentals end up approving decisions they can't actually evaluate.

This Corporate Finance and Accounting Fundamentals Programme from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy gives managers that grounding — covering investment appraisal, risk assessment and financing needs, benchmarked against how these decisions are actually made in practice. The programme is equally suited to accounting students early in their studies who need to build confidence with the calculations that make up the bulk of day-to-day accounting work.

Course Objectives

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

• Explain why accounting exists: keeping business records, calculating profit or loss, describing financial position, and informing decision-makers.
• Perform value-added tax calculations and understand its accounting treatment.
• Apply internal control measures and understand the accounting practices that support them.
• Calculate and record end-of-year adjustments, including depreciation, prepayments, accruals and inventory shortfalls.
• Summarize the core principles, trends and tools of corporate accounting and finance.
• Analyse a company's financing structure and evaluate the practical models behind financing decisions.
• Use internal and external financial information to assess business performance.

Who Should Attend

• Accountants and finance staff.
• Managers and anyone in a role that requires a solid accounting and finance background.
• First-year accounting students looking to strengthen the calculation skills accounting relies on.

Module 1: Why Accounting Exists

• The core purpose of accounting for external users: profit-and-loss and balance-sheet reporting.
• What internal users and staff can extract from business records beyond the formal statements.

Module 2: Getting the Numbers Right

• Value-added tax calculations and their accounting treatment.
• Internal control principles and the accounting measures that support them.
• End-of-year adjustments: depreciation, prepayments, accruals and inventory shortfalls.

Module 3: Corporate Finance Principles and Tools

• Core principles, trends and tools used in corporate accounting and finance.
• Analysing how a company's financing structure is put together.

Module 4: Evaluating Financing Decisions

• Practical models and theories behind corporate financing decisions.
• Comparing the economic benefits of different financing options.

Module 5: Reading Performance Through Financial Information

• Combining internal and external financial data to assess business performance.
• Turning financial analysis into a basis for management decisions.