Please note: Students do not need to be enrolled at CSULB to take this course. To register, simply complete the payment process for the full program on the MindEdge website.
Finance Essentials
Professional Development Course
This Finance Essentials program and its coursework, offered by California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in partnership with MindEdge, will guide learners to organize and interpret the financial health of standard business operations. By understanding budgeting and the time-value of money, as well as risk and return on investment (ROI), learners will gain the ability to read financial data and turn insights into impactful decisions that move the businesses forward. This program will help learners become familiar with critical financial terminology, and understand how to calculate key financial management indicators.
- Business people interested in improving their understanding of standard financial business practices
- Non-financial managers who desire to learn, understand, and implement financial information into successful business practices and decisions
- This program is entirely online, in a self-paced instructor-facilitated format that allows learners to study at their own pace and on their own schedule.
- The curriculum balances academic excellence with real-world practice, featuring text, video, interactivity, adaptive learning technology, quiz banks, and other features not available in a traditional textbook.
- Critical financial terminology
- Budgeting and budgeting strategies
- Reading and understanding income statements, and statements of cash flow
- The concepts of the time-value of money
- How to read financial statements and interpret data reports
- Standard Return On Investment (ROI) strategies and practices
- How to assess financial health by reviewing balance sheets
- Using financial reports and accounting tools to support informed decision-making
Finance Essentials: This course introduces financial managers and non-financial managers to the essentials of finance. This will help you become familiar with critical financial terminology, and you'll learn how to calculate key financial management indicators. Learn how to assess financial health by reviewing balance sheets, income statements, and statements of cash flow; and discover how finance and accounting tools can be used to support informed decision-making within organizations.
Introduction to Finance: This introductory course details the responsibilities of financial managers, the roles of finance in a typical business organization, and relevant financial markets of interest to financial managers. Furthermore, the course will discuss corporate financing and the role the stock market plays in the business world.
Financial Planning and Control: An introductory course designed to teach finance concepts to financial managers and non-financial managers. It includes reviewing tools for decision-making such as cost benefit analysis, break even analysis, and Balanced Scorecard. Basic finance concepts are also included, such as return on investment (ROI), fixed and variable costs, and payback period.
How to Read a Financial Statement: This course covers financial reports and their meaning. You will learn the fundamentals and importance of income statements, balance sheets, and statements of cash flows, as well as how they can be used to manage a business.
Introduction to Business Statistics: This introductory course for financial managers and non-financial managers provides an understanding of statistical techniques that can help any manager make better decisions. This course covers graphical representations of data that your stakeholders may expect when reviewing the results of any statistical analysis.
Time-Value of Money and Risk: An introductory level course that covers time-value of money (TVM) principles as well as risk and return. You will review the basic TVM techniques used in evaluating all financial decisions and their cash flow implications. For risk and return, you will learn how risk influences investment decisions, and how to calculate risk and rates of return. Further, you will explore the benefits of diversification and the use of the portfolio concept in investing.
Understanding and Managing Budgets: This introductory course covers budgets and how they are used in organizational settings, including the uses and functions of master budgets, operating budgets, sales, production and cost of goods sold budgets, and cash budgets. You will also learn about the budgeting process, and how organizations are using different budgeting techniques to overcome operating challenges.
