Financial Literacy for Non-Finance Professionals Training Course
1Summary
Every day, non-financial managers approve budgets, sign off on costs, and make operational calls that depend on numbers they were never trained to read. This training course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy closes that gap — not by turning administrators into accountants, but by giving them enough command of accounting language and logic to use financial information with confidence.
Working entirely in plain, non-technical language, the course walks through how the accounting system is built, what information it holds, and how business transactions move through it and end up shaping decisions across the organisation. Through practical examples grounded in everyday business activity, participants come away able to read financial statements, understand what drives cost and profit, and see how accounting supports day-to-day operations and control.
2Objectives and target group
Who Should Attend?
- Administrators and non-financial managers.
- Marketing, production, and logistics staff.
- Small business owners and divisional controllers.
By the End of This Course, You Will Be Able To
- Record transactions in the accounting system and understand the logic behind them.
- Read and interpret the format and content of financial statements.
- Use accounting information to evaluate a business and make cost-informed decisions.
- Apply basic budgetary control techniques to keep targets on track.
How You Will Benefit
- Real confidence reading and interpreting financial statements — not just recognising the terms.
- Better operational and financial decisions grounded in real numbers.
- Stronger budget control and clearer communication with accountants, auditors, and finance managers.
- Fewer costly errors, and a more marketable professional profile within your organisation.
3Course Content
Module 1: How the Accounting System Works Day to Day
- Why accounting matters for every function in the organisation, not just finance.
- The double-entry method, explained without jargon.
- Building an accounting system for real-world use, walked through with a case study.
Module 2: Closing the Books: Adjustments and Core Statements
- Control systems and reconciliations that keep the books accurate.
- Adjusting for depreciation and inventory at period end.
- Preparing the income statement and balance sheet, and how business entity type affects them.
Module 3: From Raw Numbers to Published Reports
- The structure and format behind every accounting statement.
- Adjusting for amortisation, impairment, and valuing inventory correctly.
- Accounting for sales and profit taxes, recognising revenue, and preparing the cash flow statement.
Module 4: Reading and Interpreting Company Financial Reports
- Why financial reporting standards matter, and what listed companies actually publish.
- Finding the useful information buried in an annual report, including group financial reports.
- Interpreting statements using common-size and ratio analysis, and where to find published company analysis.
Module 5: Using Cost Information to Make Decisions
- What management accounting is for, and how responsibility accounting works.
- Collecting, classifying, and summarising product and service costs.
- Absorption costing versus activity-based costing, separating fixed from variable costs, and using break-even analysis.
Module 6: Budgeting for Control and Profitability
- Budgets and budgetary control as a management tool, not just a formality.
- Building annual and functional budgets, including a cash budget.
- Weighing the benefits and limits of budgeting, and alternative budgeting methods.