Why finance training is a must for managers

The end of the financial year is fast approaching, and that means it’s time to both evaluate how you performed over the past 12 months, and what the next 12 will look like. However, you can’t necessarily be confident in your ability to do so if your leaders don’t have a bit of financial literacy — even if numbers are not normally in their purview.

A little financial literacy for every member of your management group will go a long way toward helping them all get on the same page and understand what your business truly needs to succeed. The following are just a few benefits of financial training for non-finance managers:

1) It gives a better understanding of basic business documents

Are your managers really going to be able to put you in the best position going forward if they don’t understand the papers that cross their desk each day? While some aspects of managing business are relatively simple to comprehend, a surface-level understanding of finance isn’t going to position you for success, according to the Association for Talent Development. With the right training, when it comes time to review critical documents, everything will be easier for managers to truly comprehend.

Help your managers understand financial basics.

2) It helps you set your next budget

Along similar lines, with the end of the financial year nearly here, your managers need to be able to look at your expenses and revenue, determining what might have been anomalous and what is a likely indicator of things to come. You must be able to build your next budget with confidence that you won’t have to dramatically change things on the fly, and the right training will help with that.

3) It allows them to understand more aspects of your business

Again, your managers may occasionally have to review financial reports from outside their specific departments — which gives them a deeper knowledge of all your processes, as European Business Review noted. When your managers have a better handle on the financial details of your various departments, it allows them to identify key financial aspects of your business and, in particular, get a better sense of what’s working and what isn’t. Once they know that, they can accentuate and build support for the positives, and find ways to work around or correct the negatives.

4) Start learning a common language for your business

You never want to face a situation where one hand does not know what the other is doing in terms of your operations. Financial training helps everyone know exactly what they’re dealing with when it comes to budgeting, according to Harvard Business Review. Once all managers are on the same page, it becomes easier to reach a consensus strategy as the new financial year begins.

If you want to ensure that your managers and other staff members have a better understanding of the ins and outs of business finance, ICML is here to help. Our Finance for Non-Finance Managers course is designed to teach all the right concepts in a way that makes sense for novices. Get in touch with us today for a highly customised training experience that sets everyone up for success going forward.