Introduction

This training seminar will equip you with the essential skills to prepare and deliver winning financial presentations.

You may have highly developed finance knowledge and accounting skills; you might be the master of the Excel spreadsheet – but in today’s highly competitive workplace those talents will not by themselves be enough to get you out of the accounting office and into the C-suite with the real decision-makers. The most successful CFO’s and Finance Directors achieve their place at the boardroom table by mastering the skills to interpret and communicate financial information in a way that provides key insights in to business performance for the organization’s strategic decision-makers.

This training seminar will highlight:

• The way to convert financial data to provide meaningful business insights
• Integrating financial and other key performance measures
• How to harness Excel and Powerpoint for making winning presentations
• Understanding and meeting the needs of your audience
• The rules for making financial presentations with real impact
• How to avoid the most common mistakes and pitfalls

Objectives

The training course explains and practically demonstrates how to prepare for, plan and deliver financial presentations with real impact to internal and external audiences.

At the end of this training course, you will learn to:

• Produce clear reports and business insights using Excel and Powerpoint
• Integrate financial and non-financial performance measures
• Understand the needs of your audience when making financial presentations
• Use the proven rules of effective communication to get your message across
• Make presentations with real impact to internal and external audiences
• How to handle difficult questions and challenging people

Organisational Impact

The organisation will gain through the development and application of capabilities and skills in key areas of communicating key financial insights to decision-makers; specifically benefits will include:

• Improved awareness of key business performance measures
• Greater insights from better interpretation and presentation of financial data
• Better integration of financial and non-financial performance measures
• Raised levels of professionalism and communication skills in the finance team
• Improved human talent pool for internal succession planning
• More effective communication with internal and external stakeholders

Personal Impact

Delegates will learn the principles and practical skills to improve communication with non-financial managers and make effective financial presentations to them; specific capabilities and skills include:

• How to link financial measures to strategic organisational goals
• Using Excel and Powerpoint to produce professional standard presentations
• How to communicate effectively with non-financial managers
• Designing and writing business reports with impact
• Planning and making confident presentations
• Understanding audiences and dealing with difficult questions

Who Should Attend?

Effective communication of key financial insights is at the heart of effective performance management; those employed in any aspect of business finance and accounting across the organisation should attend.

This training programme is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit:

• Finance Directors and Chief Financial Officers
• Planning and budgeting managers
• Management accountants
• Senior finance managers
• Tax managers and auditors

Course Outline

• A Practical Approach to Financial Analysis
• Understanding the Strategic Context for Financial Information
• Calculating and Interpreting Financial Ratios
• Using Excel to Produce Reports and Graphics with Impact
• Why Non-financial Managers Find Finance Difficult

• Using an Effective Performance Management Framework
  
• Identifying Organisational Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
  
• Understanding and Using a Balanced Scorecard
  
• The Principles of Integrated Reporting
  
• Designing and Using Dashboards
  

• How to Communicate Key Finance Concepts Effectively
  
• Principles of Financial Interpretation and Business Insight
  
• Using Excel to Produce Graphics with Impact
  
• Designing Excel Reports for Non-financial Readers
  
• Avoiding Common Mistakes in Presenting Financial Information

• The Principles of Effective Communication
  
• Understanding Your Audience and Their Needs
  
• Using Powerpoint to Produce Professional Quality Presentations
  
• Designing a Winning Financial Presentation
  
• Avoiding Common Mistakes in Presentations

• How to Write an Effective Financial Report
  
• Tips for Delivering a Knock-out Presentation
  
• Managing Nerves and Presenting like a Professional
  
• Handling Difficult Questions
  
• Managing Meetings and Audiences