Finance for Non-Financial Managers

Most managers are handed financial statements they were never taught to read — and then judged on numbers they cannot explain. This course teaches a manager to read the business's finances without fear and to use them without bluffing. You will learn to read a profit and loss statement line by line, to say what a balance sheet actually shows in plain terms, and to explain why a profitable business can still run out of cash. You will learn your own department's unit economics, how to build a budget you can defend, and how to have a variance conversation without excuses. And you will learn to make the business case for a hire, a purchase, or a project — costs whole, benefits honest, break-even shown — and to ask your finance partner better questions than "is there money for this?" The course works on your own department's numbers throughout: bring real statements and budgets, anonymized, and leave able to explain them.