Certificate in Finance Essentials

This online certificate program, offered by our accredited school partners, introduces non-financial managers to the essentials of finance. The course will help you become conversant in critical financial terminology, and you'll learn how to calculate key financial management indicators. You will learn how to assess your organization's financial health by reviewing balance sheets, income statements, and statements of cash flow, and you will discover how finance and accounting tools can be used to support informed decision making within organizations. Enroll through one of our accredited university or college partners today!

Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 1 - Financial Planning and Control • Explain cost benefit analysis • Calculate return on investment and the payback period • Explain fixed and variable costs • Calculate break even and understand CVP (cost-volume-profit) analysis • Explain tracking and performance measures • Explain and calculate Balanced Scorecard measures Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 2 - How to Read a Financial Statement • Identify and describe the documents and financial statements included in an organization's financial report • Itemize and interpret the information in the income statement, balance sheet, statement of changes in shareholders' equity, and statement of cash flows • Correctly state the impact of specific business activities on cash flow • Define financial (ratio) analysis and explain its objectives and limitations • Identify the various types and categories of financial ratios • Perform calculations using financial ratios Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 3 - Introduction to Business Statistics • Differentiate between descriptive and inferential statistics • Distinguish between the four different scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio • Identify the appropriate graphical or tabular method for presenting your data • Create frequency distributions • Create meaningful presentations and graphs including: • frequency polygons • bar graphs • pie charts • line graphs • histograms • Calculate probability and explain its practical application • Compute the mode, median, and mean of a dataset • Calculate the variance and standard deviation of a dataset • Interpret sampling with and without replacement • Explain the significance of the area under a curve Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 4 - Introduction to Finance • Identify and differentiate the three most common types of business organizations and the structure of each • State the fundamental objectives of a corporation and the differences between wealth and profit maximization • Recognize the impact of social and ethical responsibility on business • Identify and describe the structure and functions of the finance department within an organization • Define the principal-agent relationship and strategies for overcoming conflicts of interest and motivating managers • List and define the five key principles that form the foundation of financial management • Recognize and define the five key financial markets • Identify the sources, rules, and life-cycle stages of corporate financing • Describe the function of the stock market and the three trading venues it utilizes • Recognize the factors related to interest rate determination and the impact of interest on an organization Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 5 - Time Value of Money and Risk • Distinguish between points in time and periods of time as shown by a time line • Define compounding and discounting • Compute future value or present value for single payment amounts • Distinguish between single payments and streams of payments and between uneven streams and annuities • Solve for the interest rate or time period for simple present value and future value problems • Define risk • Describe how risk influences investment decisions • Calculate risk and rates of return • Describe how diversification can limit risk • Explain how diversifiable risk can be lowered using a portfolio approach Certificate in Finance Essentials Module 6 - Understanding and Managing Budgets • Recognize the uses and functions of budgeting • Recognize the key activities, considerations, and benefits of strategic organizational planning • Recognize the purpose and make-up of a master budget • Identify the components and calculations used to create a master budget and recognize uses for this information • Identify the components and purpose of an operating budget • Recognize how sales, production, and cost of goods sold budgets are created and perform related calculations • Recognize the purpose of cash budgets and how they are prepared • Identify ways the budget process can be managed for optimal results and recognize the benefits and limitations of the management-by-objective system

All required reference materials are provided with this program. Technical requirements: Internet Connection • Broadband or High-Speed (DSL, Cable, Wireless) Hardware Requirements • Processor - 2GHz Processor or Higher • Memory - 1 GB RAM Minimum Recommended Software Requirements • Operating Systems - Windows 7, 8 or 10; Mac OS x 10 or higher • Microsoft Office 2007, 2010 or 2013 or a Word Processing application to save and open Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx) • Internet Browsers - Google Chrome is highly recommended • Cookies MUST be enabled • Pop-ups MUST be allowed (Pop-up Blocker disabled) • Adobe PDF Reader

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

This course provides students with qualified support professionals to guide them through their learning experience. The student support team is available to answer any questions a learner may have including questions on course content, course material, certifications, and registration or enrollment questions. Support advisers also monitor the progress of learners to ensure training retention and program advancement.