Finance for Non-Financial Managers, Step by Step for 2027

Understand the numbers you are expected to manage – profit, the balance sheet and cash – and see what your own decisions do to them, with no accounting background needed.

Who it's for

For managers, team leaders, founders and professionals who have never trained in finance but are expected to hold a budget, read the monthly accounts, make a case for spending or explain why profit and cash have drifted apart. You need only a calculator or a spreadsheet and your own organisation’s figures.

What you'll learn

• Tell profit from cash, and management accounts from annual accounts, by following one sale from the order to the money in the bank.
• Read any profit and loss account in six steps, calculate the margins that matter and write conclusions your team can act on.
• Read a balance sheet and judge in minutes whether an organisation can pay its bills, how much it owes and whether its reserves are growing.
• Read a cash flow statement and build a simple bridge from profit to the change in the bank balance.
• Sort your costs into fixed, variable, semi-variable, direct and indirect, and keep sunk costs out of your decisions.
• Calculate contribution, break-even point and margin of safety, and answer what-if questions in a simple spreadsheet.
• Trace decisions such as hiring, discounting or changing payment terms through all three statements, build a one-page business case with payback and simple return on investment, and work well with your finance team.

What's inside

• 69 pages, 9 chapters
• Every chapter follows the same pattern: key concepts, a step-by-step method, an illustrative example from a fictional UK organisation, a ready-to-use tool, common mistakes, key steps and a “Try it” exercise
• Tools include a finance jargon decoder, P&L reading checklist, balance sheet health check, profit-to-cash bridge, cost classification worksheet, break-even calculator, decision impact checklist, one-page business case and a list of questions to ask your finance team
• A 30-60-90 day action plan with checklists and a 20-minute routine for reading your accounts, plus a glossary
• PDF in A4 format — read on screen or print
• Instant download after purchase

Contents

1. Speaking the Language of Finance
2. Reading the Profit and Loss Account
3. Reading the Balance Sheet
4. Following the Cash
5. Understanding How Costs Behave
6. Break-Even and Contribution
7. How Your Decisions Change the Numbers
8. Making a Simple Business Case
9. Working Well with Your Finance Team

Part of The Business Library

This title is one of the 55 ebooks in The Business Library, available together for £109 (worth £1,437 if bought separately: the total of the individual prices of the included titles in our store). It is also included in The Ultimate Business Bundle, which adds 8 checklists and toolkits and 10 workbooks — all 73 products for £147.