Accounting and Finance for Owners and Managers: From Bookkeeping to Budget Approval

This course teaches accounting and finance from the first receipt to the meeting where you ask for money. It's written for three kinds of people: business owners who keep or oversee their own books, managers outside finance who need to read numbers, run a budget and talk to the finance team with confidence, and anyone who has to ask for money, whether that's a budget, a project, a hire, a campaign, a loan or a grant. You don't need any finance background. Every term is explained in plain words first, and then you'll see how a finance director would put the same idea and what they'd ask.

You'll start with the foundations: cash and accrual accounting, the accounting equation, double entry and the chart of accounts. Then you'll learn to record sales, purchases and mobile money payments, reconcile the bank and keep business money apart from personal money. You'll read and connect the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement, and study inventory, depreciation, debtors and creditors, payroll, fixed and variable costs, contribution, break-even, pricing, and running costs against long-term spending.

Later modules cover VAT principles, IFRS for SMEs and working with accountants and auditors; budgets, forecasts, variance analysis and the ratios a finance team watches; and how to build a business case with ROI, payback, NPV and IRR, test it with what-if scenarios, present it and answer the hard questions. You'll learn marketing spend in finance terms, how the same principles change in retail, services, manufacturing, agriculture, subscription businesses, NGOs and the public sector, and how to forecast cash, prepare for a lender, investor or donor, and guard against fraud. The course ends with a capstone set of accounts, a cash forecast and a budget request, and a toolkit of templates and checklists.

A running case follows Nhyira Bakery, a made-up family bakery in Kumasi, Ghana, that has grown from one shop into a business supplying supermarkets and running a delivery service.

The course teaches principles. It isn't tax, legal or investment advice for any country, so check local rules and ask a qualified professional before you act.