Corporate Training By Zack Academy - The Controllers Workshop

Why Should You Take This Controllers Workshop?

As a controller, you need to be forward looking, acting as your organization's headlights. You're responsible for anticipating financial issues and acting to resolve them before they become bigger problems. And the earlier you can influence a course of action, the more likely that it will be successful. If only it was as simple as it sounds, right? 

Keep your finger on the financial pulse of your organization for a more accurate understanding of your organizational well-being.

Successful controllers need both a theoretical understanding and practical skills in advanced management accounting, processes, cost control, and revenue-stream management. In short, you're responsible for making sure your organization reaches its goals. But no pressure, right?

Don't worry, now there's The Controller's Workshop, an intensive one-day course designed to get you up to speed with all the latest tips, techniques, and best practices used by successful controllers in top organizations. You'll learn:

• How to identify the objectives and responsibility for internal controls
• Why communication skills are vital for controllers and how to improve yours
• The impact new technologies have on your job
• And more!

You know the numbers inside and out, but just knowing your finances isn't enough anymore.

A successful controller needs to know more than just cash flow and budgeting; you also need to excel in organization behavior, leadership skills, operations management, business cycle economics, and managerial finance. Those are a lot of hats for one person to wear. If you're not 100% confident that you're an expert in every area of your work, that you're completely up to date on the latest strategies and best practices, then you won't want to miss The Controller's Workshop.

Syllabus

1. An Overview of the Controller"s Job — What Is It in Today"s Environment?

• Discover the qualities of the best controllers
• Understand the expanded role of the controller that is critical in today"s volatile environment
• Effectively communicate with others within the organization
• Identify the controller"s role in management

2. Improving Leadership Skills and Day-to-Day Operations

• Understanding the role of the controller in the planning cycle and strategic planning
• Anticipating and delivering on the expectations of stakeholders
• Effectively implementing cash management techniques
• Manage and protect assets by establishing, monitoring, and enforcing internal controls
• Training nonfinancial people to understand and use financial ratios and trends to improve the financial health of the organization
• Determining the value-added activities of a process

3. Forecasting and Budgeting: An Art, Not a Science

• Understanding the mysterious art of forecasting
• How to use the budget as a guide
• Understanding the major phases of budgeting
• The most important budgeting decision: are you going to do it from the top down or the bottom up?
• Evaluating the various approaches to budgeting
• Mastering the operating budget
• Forecasting cash and the cash budget
• Evaluating and developing the capital budget

4. Documentation and Operations

• The importance of written policies and procedures
• How to create job descriptions for the department
• How to develop a departmental training program
• Identify and get rid of documentation that is not needed
• Save time by simplifying the work flow
• Documenting the important processes and procedures
• Avoiding headaches later on by finding and correcting errors early
• The best practices in operational accounting

5. How to Develop Internal Control Systems

• Identify the objectives and responsibility for internal controls
• Why people commit fraud and how to identify potential fraudsters
• Understand the various types of fraud
• Know how to prevent fraud
• Understand what to do when you discover fraud

6. Mastering the Internal Audit Function and the Fast Close

• Understanding reporting relationships
• Knowing the role of the audit committee
• Understanding and managing the objectives and activities of internal audits
• Achieving the fast close and understanding the different types of fast close

7. Communication Skills and Time Management for Controllers

• How to master the skills of managing up and managing down
• Getting upper management to buy in to your ideas
• How to communicate with other departments and people within your organization
• The most important keys to prioritizing and managing your time

8. Technology Trends and How They Affect the Controller"s Job

• Understanding advances in document scanning
• How some organizations are dramatically reducing costs through automated processes
• What to look for in future technology trends