AAT Essentials
Delivering short courses for business professionals
AAT Essentials
Much of modern business depends on being able to understand,
interpret and communicate key financial information. AAT Essentials
is a range of short courses that have been developed and designed to
meet the fast paced and challenging demands of today’s workplace.
These courses will put your centre on the front foot – enabling you
to tap into a growing market of delegates who are looking to manage
business finance more effectively.
All AAT Essentials courses are ideal for business professionals or business owners without an
accounting or finance background.
Essentials one-day courses
Our current courses are:
Budgeting for the small business
– planning and control
Managing cash flow, keeping your
business healthy
This AAT Essential will help delegates prepare
budgets, make informed budgeting decisions
and effectively communicate financial
information (for example, to business
partners or the bank).
Through exercises using worked examples,
this AAT Essential will help improve delegates’
effectiveness at managing the inflow and
outflow of cash, helping them to protect the
financial security of the business.
Finance for non-financial managers
Making sense of financial documents
This AAT Essential provides a basic grounding
in key financial processes as well as analysing
financial performance to help delegates meet
these requirements more effectively.
This AAT Essential is a practical course which
shows delegates how to keep records and
understand the purpose of everything from
invoices through to bank reconciliations.
All of the AAT Essentials courses are delivered in around seven hours, giving delegates the opportunity
to update their skill set in only a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost in comparison to
other one-day courses. There’s no formal assessment but delegates will be awarded an AAT certificate
upon completion of the course.
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
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The AAT Essentials package
The AAT Essentials courses are specifically designed by AAT to
enable you to deliver them direct to your business network. They can
be delivered to up to 15 delegates per course, and we’ll provide you
with all of the resources you’ll need to deliver the courses efficiently
and effectively.
What resources are provided?
What’s next?
These resources are provided by AAT
electronically, and include:
We offer two options for you to choose from to
deliver AAT Essentials:
For the trainer:
Single licence
• A
PowerPoint presentation containing the
course slides – a PowerPoint and PDF
version of this is provided.
The single licence allows you to deliver one or
more of the Essentials courses once, meaning
you’ll pay a lower upfront cost. It also includes
course scheduling, allowing you to advertise
your course(s) on AAT’s website helping you
generate leads and bookings.
• A
guide to help the trainer prepare and
deliver the course to delegates.
• Answers to activities.
For the delegates:
Annual licence
• A
ctivities for the delegates – interactive
sessions throughout the course for the
delegates to test their understanding.
The annual licence offers you the flexibility to
run one or more of the Essentials courses for
12 months, as often as you like, there is no
limit to the number of courses you can deliver.
With the annual licence, you can also include
the course scheduling option as well as the
opportunity to have co-branded course materials.
• A
presentation notes document – the
delegates will receive a copy of the course
slides with space to add their own notes.
• A
AT certification – all delegates will receive
a personalised certificate.
If you would like more information about how you can add AAT Essentials courses to your portfolio,
email us at [email protected] or contact your AAT Regional Account Manager.
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
3
Why choose AAT Essentials?
Reap the benefits of delivering AAT Essentials courses at your centre
– just like Love and Tate Plc.
An award-winning, independent recruitment and training consultancy for around 20 years,
Love and Tate Plc also operate two Pitman Training centre franchises in London’s Oxford
Circus and in The City. They’re currently delivering two AAT Essentials courses; Finance
for non-financial managers and Budgeting. These one-day courses provide delegates with
practical finance and accounting skills under the globally recognised AAT name.
Ishaq Ahmed, Course Advisor at Love and Tate Plc, explains why:
“One of the main reasons we deliver AAT Essentials is
the AAT brand. AAT in itself represents a good name,
a trusted name, and that’s why people want to attend
AAT Essentials courses.”
It’s not just down to you to promote your AAT
Essentials courses; we can support you by
promoting them on our website – bringing you
extra exposure.
“We advertise on our own website but
delegates mainly come to us from AAT’s
website. We are fully booked for the next three
months and people are starting to book onto
the courses up to five months in advance.”
Ishaq Ahmed, Course Advisor.
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
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Maggie Love, Managing Director, sees cost and time as a factor:
“A lot of other training providers are hugely
expensive and they generally do longer two
or three day courses. The accessibility of
AAT Essentials courses and the time and cost
of them makes them attractive in the market.”
With more and more people requiring
accounting and finance skills for their roles,
AAT Essentials courses offer practical training
packed with the fundamentals of how to
manage business finances more effectively.
“There are many people who need to
understand key finance principles for the
commercial success of their departments
or their own businesses – and that’s where
AAT Essentials delivers. It’s a really nice
course and the fact it’s one day and AAT
branded makes it attractive to delegates.
It’s a whole area that people need to know
about, so for us, there are great market
opportunities with AAT Essentials.”
Maggie Love, Managing Director.
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
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Budgeting for the small business
– planning and control
Course outline
Simple budgeting aids planning and enables businesses to monitor
their performance and keep an eye out for danger signs. This course
helps delegates prepare budgets, learn how to make informed budgeting
decisions and effectively communicate financial information.
Why budget?
• What a budget is and when to budget
• Why businesses complete budgets
Operational budgets
• Component parts of an operational budget
• What an operational budget looks like
• Sources of information for figures
• Factors that influence figures
• The scope of an operational budget
• How to calculate figures for an operational budget
Cash flow budgets
• Component parts of a cash flow budget
• What a cash flow budget looks like
• Sources of information for figures
• Factors that influence figures
• How to calculate figures for a cash flow budget
Using budgets to manage and control the business
• The budgeting process
• The importance of completing budgets
• How to use budgets
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
6
Finance for non-financial managers
Course outline
Understanding financial documents, analysing financial performance
and managing budgets is a part of many managers’ roles. In this
course, delegates will also gain a basic grounding in key financial
documents and processes.
Understanding the income statement account and statement of financial position
• What is included in a statement of financial position and an income statement account
• The difference between the two financial statements
Using information from the income statement account and statement of financial position
• H
ow to interpret information from an income statement account and statement of
financial position
• Ratio analysis
• How to interpret using ratio analysis
• How to use selected ratios to interpret information in financial statements
• The limitations of ratio analysis
Controlling cash
• Why cash doesn’t equal profit
• What you can do to ensure there’s sufficient cash within the business
Using budgets to manage business activity
• How budgets help with daily business management
• How to interpret information in a budget
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
7
Managing cash flow,
keeping your business healthy
Course outline
The availability of cash enables a business to survive and prosper
and is the primary indicator of business health. This course enables
delegates to improve their effectiveness at managing the inflow and
outflow of cash, helping to protect the financial security of the business.
Cash and the cash budget
• Why cash is important in a business
• Timing of cash flows
• Importance of estimating likely cash flows pattern
• How to prepare a cash budget
Monitoring and controlling cash flows
• How to use the cash budget
• Importance of comparing budgeted and actual cash flows
• Why differences should be investigated
• Possible reasons for differences and subsequent actions that can be taken
Cash flow and credit customers
• The risks of giving credit to customers
• How to assess the creditworthiness of customers
• How to guard against non-payment by credit customers
• Strategies to deal with late payers
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
8
Making sense of financial documents
Course outline
A lot of customer and supplier documentation is required in daily
business. This course helps delegates to understand the purpose
of everything from invoices through to bank reconciliations.
Customer documentation and records
• Raising sales invoices from a range of source documents
• Raising sales and credit notes
• Keeping a sales day-book and customer accounts
• Preparing customer statements
• Dealing with receipts from customers, trade and bulk discount
Supplier documentation and records
• Purchase invoices and credit notes against source documents
• Keeping a purchase day-book and supplier accounts
• Checking supplier statements
• How to deal with payments to suppliers
Recording receipts and payments in the cash book, and checking bank activities
• Recording amounts received and payments made in the cash receipts book
• How to calculate the bank balance
• C
hecking and updating the cash receipts book and cash payment book against the
bank statement
• H
ow to reconcile the bank balance on the bank statement with the bank balance
according to the cash receipts book and cash payment book
To get started, visit aat.org.uk/essentials
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For further information about delivering
AAT Essentials courses, email us at
[email protected] or alternatively
you can contact your AAT Regional
Account Manager.
@YourAAT
/YourAAT
Association of Accounting Technicians
140 Aldersgate Street
London
EC1A 4HY
Registered charity no. 1050724
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