Most people will deal with business finances in some way, whether you’re planning budget income and expenditure or interrogating the data on your financial statements. Being equipped with the skills to do this correctly and efficiently can make a huge difference to your role and, ultimately, your business’s performance.
With content drawn from AAT’s world-class accounting and finance qualifications, these six online courses cover the core skills that underpin sound financial planning and management. You’ll learn the basics of bookkeeping, budgeting
Type
E-learning
Duration
3 hours +
Syllabus
The basics of bookkeeping
Take this online course for an introduction to bookkeeping principles, enabling you to accurately record business transactions.
What is double entry bookkeeping?
Categories of accounts: which are debits and which are credits?
Entering transactions into the accounts with VAT and on credit
Customer and supplier accounts
Trial balance
Common errors
Omission
Principle
Commission
Reversal of entries
Original entry
The basics of financial statements
This online course will help you understand key financial terms and what they all mean when presented together on a statement.
Five categories of accounts
Assets
Liabilities
Expenses
Revenue
Capital/equity
The accounting equation
The elements of financial statements
Current and non-current assets and liabilities
Capitalisation threshold
Capital/equity
Calculating profits
Including accruals concept
Layouts of financial statements
How to analyse financial statements
This online course will help you master the crucial skill of being able to interpret and evaluate the data in your financial statements.
Profitability ratios
Liquidity
Efficiency
Financial position
Limitations of ratio analysis – what it tells us and what it does not say
The basics of cash flow
Learn how to monitor cash flow, to produce forecasts to predict shortfalls, and best practice credit control processes with this online course.
Cash flow cycle
Cash and non-cash transactions
Operational and non-operational cash flows
Cash vs profit
Calculate cash positions
Changes from one period to next and compare to profit
Reconcile the difference
Maintaining cash flow through the cash budget
Including lagging because of credit transactions
Reducing the risk of granting credit
The basics of budgeting
This online course will help you understand the theory behind effective budgeting and the common challenges businesses face.
Vision and strategy
Who plans and writes the budget?
Types of budgets
Capital, revenue and cash
Capitalisation threshold
Performance
Targets
Slack
Contingency
Budget holder's rivalry
Suboptimal
Methods
Incremental
Zero based
Priority based
Break even
Allocating overheads
How to create a budget
This online course will empower you to plan and create budgets from scratch, ensuring you invest and monitor your funds correctly.
Revenue budgets
Information sources and cost behaviour
Activity changes
Seasons
Technology
Social trends
Economy
Completing a budget and calculating profit
Monitoring budgets
Variance analysis
Flexed budget
The need to use information to reforecast
What you'll achieve
When you’ve completed the six courses
Who it's for
These courses are perfect if you're:
running your own business and looking to improve your financial acumen
in a non-financial role but want to boost your understanding of bookkeeping principles
looking to upskill by bolstering your basic finance skills
How to access
AAT Business Finance Basics is a 3 hour session consisting of six courses including video tutorials and interactive learning to test your knowledge as you learn.
Once purchased you will be able to access the AAT Learning Portal where you'll have 12 months access from the date of accessing the learning materials. AAT Learning Portal allows you to view all the courses you’ve purchased in one place, monitor your latest training activity and create goals to help you achieve your training aims.
