Module 1: Basic Records
The need for financial records; the recording of cash and credit transactions; analysed cash books; business documents; petty cash and imprest system; bank reconciliation; internal control and the treatment of purchase orders, goods received notes, advice notes, invoices and statements.

Module 2: VAT
Legal requirements of VAT including rights and penalties; input and output tax; non-allowable and other adjustments; rates of VAT and their applications; account treatment of VAT; annual accounting and cash accounting schemes; treatment of discounts and bad debts; completion of the VAT return.

Module 3: Payroll
An understanding of the PAYE system including standard Inland Revenue forms; methods of calculating gross pay including the treatment of SMP and SSP; the calculation of net pay including the treatment of statutory and voluntary deductions; tax code changes; the treatment of starters and leavers; accounting for payment to Collector of Taxes; year end procedures; methods of payment of net pay.

Module 4: Final accounts and their interpretation
The understanding and calculation of gross profit; the understanding and calculation of net profit; the preparation of profit and loss account including adjustments; the preparation of the balance sheet; the understanding and distinction between cash and profit; the use and interpretation of financial statements for managing the business.

Module 5: The small business and the Inland Revenue
An understanding of self assessment, personal and business taxation; allowable and non-allowable expenditure; the concept and calculation of capital allowances; the determination of the tax liability; the concept of the small limited company and its liability to taxation.

Module 6: Costing and pricing the product
The cost of producing, selling and distributing the product or service, distinguishing between direct and indirect costs and fixed and variable costs; methods of determining selling price of a product or service, mark-up and margin; break even analysis; market research and the relationship with price.

Module 7: Working capital management
The working capital cycle; the control of stock, debtors and creditors; stock: inventory management and control; debtors: credit control policy and operation, discounts and the effects on cashflow; creditors: a mechanism for short term funding; short term funding: bank overdrafts and factoring; the use of ratios - liquidity and management utilisation; the danger of overtrading.

Module 8: Financial planning and control
The preparation of short, medium and long term plans - the business plan (with emphasis of financial aspects of forecasting, in particular cashflow and forecast operating statement); the short term budget: functional budgets, cash budget and operating statements for cost profit centres; medium to long term plans - the financing of expansion and investment capital in fixed assets; methods of funding: short and long term borrowing, leasing, venture capital and grants; the monitoring of planned with actual performance and its use to highlight areas requiring remedial action; financial reporting - the banker and the customer.

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