All directors (and officers) require a reasonable understanding of a company’s financial statements in order to effectively undertake their respective roles and meet their statutory and common law duties. They are expected to ask relevant questions, to ascertain further information, when necessary.It  is of critical importance to officers and directors of all types of organisations, not just public listed ones. This course focuses on the following areas:

• Reviewing a company’s financial statements within the context of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
• Preparing questions to obtain any additional information required by a director or officer
•  Fulfilling the supervisory role required by a board member.

This course has been developed in response to the increasing demand for various financial and accounting reports required in all businesses on a daily basis due to developments in the East African market in particular. This course aims to develop participants' understanding of the following topics and their related details:

• Financial analysis, its concept, and types, through practical examples from participating companies' reality
• Introduction to main financial statements, their characteristics, and purposes
• Principles of tabulating and classifying financial statement items
• List and differentiate between the important components of basic financial statements
• Explain financial statements' ratios and design Excel sheets and graphs for financial statements analysis
• Give examples of creative accounting schemes and discuss the validity of the used accounting rules
• Assess the quality of financial reports and evaluate quality of the reported earnings and cash flows
• Analyse the financial position and performance of a company over a period of time and draw conclusions regarding its sustainability
• Understanding and performing financial analysis
• Performing vertical, horizontal, and trend analysis
• Financial forecasting
• Modelling financial statements
• Applying Excel functions and tools

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

• Distinguish between types of financial statements
• Read financial statements
• Link numbers in financial statements together
• Evaluate the overall financial position of the company
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company 
• Understanding financial statements
• Reading annual reports
• Processing financial data
• Financial analysis
• Credit analysis
• Risk management
• Criticising financial reporting standards used
• Applying professional skepticism
• Identifying financial fraud
• Financial forecasting 
• Use financial ratio analysis to interpret organisational financial performance and position
• Calculate financial ratios related to the cash flow statement  
• Utilise Microsoft Excel in the time value of money calculations
• Apply MS Excel modelling tools and functions such as spinner, list box, option button, etc.
• Forecast and build models for the three main financial statements

Chief accountants, accounting managers, senior accountants, finance directors, finance managers, financial analysts, financial controllers, financial accounts managers, heads of finance departments, credit controllers, credit risk analysts, bankers, and relationship managers.