SD2X - Step 6 - Entrepreneurs

These sessions walk participants through the critical components of financial analysis and teach CEOs basic skills to monitor, assess and track finances alongside their CFO. These sessions repeat and build on one another in order to provide several touch points in two areas that are commonly pain points for SMEs.

Materials you will find here include:

Lesson curriculum, recordings and Powerpoint presentations
Financial Policies & Procedures Manual Template (Session 9)
Accounting Policies & Procedures Manual Template (Session 10)
Budget Template (Session 10)
Financial KPIs Template (Session 10)
3-Steps to Closing the Books (Session 10)
Labor Efficiency Tool (Session 11)
13-week Cashflow Tool (Session 12)
13-week Cashflow Tool Instructions (Session 12)
Third Party Accounting and Finance Tools and Templates

Session 9: INTRODUCTION TO FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

During the session, executives learn that they should never abdicate accounting and finance (which is what most do). We teach CEOs that they are the co-CFO of their company and they should be very comfortable at a high level, understanding the different types of financial statements that they should be receiving on a monthly basis. We cover the difference between finance and accounting, and we begin introducing the importance of discipline in the finance and accounting department with two concepts: 1) Closing the books by the 10th and obtaining the financial reports by the 15th of every month; and 2) Running a Targets versus Actuals (TvA) exercise every month to improve forecasting.

Session 10: FINANCE FOR EXECUTIVES PART 1

During this lecture, executives learn what to do with financial statements once they finally receive them. There are three basic activities that participants will learn to do with their financial statements. The first is to run a Targets versus Actuals (TvA) analysis on their financials. This requires that executives have a target in the form of a budget. We do not do a full session on budgeting, but executives are told that their CFOs should be trained separately.

Session 11: FINANCE FOR EXECUTIVES PART 2

We put more emphasis on the group session, where the executives will work through their numbers with other participants and RENEW members. During the breakouts we have a RENEW team member guiding the discussion and helping ensure calculations are done properly. Ideally, the executive is able to tell a story about their financial statements. We also introduce the idea of equal pay and see if executives are able to determine if they are paying their staff equally across genders.

Session 12: MASTERING CASH FLOW

In this session, we discuss one of the most critical activities for an executive to manage – cash flow. Executives often manage cash daily by looking at what’s in their bank account (if that). But there is generally no forecasting that is done. However, by simply forecasting cash for the next 13 weeks (or one quarter or 90 days) an executive can dramatically improve their odds of not running into cash flow problems, which is the most common and stressful challenge faced by executives.