Advanced Cash Flow and Accounting Practices Course

Lesson 1 • Key Accounting Terminology

Defines essential vocabulary used throughout the course, including liquidity, solvency, and leverage. Ensures precise communication in all financial contexts.

Lesson 2 • Core Accounting Principles Explained

Introduces accrual vs. cash basis accounting and the matching principle. Establishes the conceptual framework underlying all subsequent financial analysis.

Lesson 3 • Understanding Financial Statements

Covers the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows as interconnected documents. Enables accurate interpretation of a company's financial position.

Lesson 1 • Investing and Financing Activities

Covers capital expenditures, asset sales, debt issuance, and equity transactions. Shows how non-operating decisions shape overall cash position.

Lesson 2 • Operating Activities in Depth

Examines cash generated from core business operations using both direct and indirect methods. Connects operating cash flow to net income adjustments from Chapter 1.

Lesson 3 • Cash Flow Statement Quality Assessment

Evaluates the reliability of reported cash flows by detecting reclassifications and one-time items. Builds critical reading skills essential for advanced analysis.

Lesson 4 • Free Cash Flow Calculation

Defines and computes free cash flow and levered free cash flow from statement data. Provides a key metric for evaluating operational efficiency and investment capacity.

Lesson 1 • Receivables Policy and Credit Terms

Establishes how credit terms, credit limits, and customer risk scoring affect cash inflows. Directly links receivables policy to operating cash flow from Chapter 2.

Lesson 2 • Accounts Payable Optimization

Covers supplier payment terms, dynamic discounting, and payment timing strategies. Balances supplier relationships with the goal of extending payable days strategically.

Lesson 3 • Days Sales Outstanding Analysis

Calculates and benchmarks DSO to identify collection inefficiencies across customer segments. Provides actionable metrics for receivables improvement programs.

Lesson 4 • Invoicing and Collections Process

Details invoice accuracy, dispute resolution, and escalation workflows for overdue accounts. Reduces days sales outstanding and improves cash conversion.

Lesson 1 • Cash Pooling and Concentration

Explains notional pooling and physical cash concentration structures for multi-entity businesses. Reduces idle cash and lowers external borrowing costs.

Lesson 2 • Cash Conversion Cycle Mastery

Calculates and decomposes the cash conversion cycle into its three drivers. Connects receivables, payables, and inventory data from prior chapters into one metric.

Lesson 3 • Inventory Management and Cash Impact

Analyzes how inventory levels, turnover, and valuation methods affect cash and reported profit. Introduces just-in-time and safety stock trade-offs.

Lesson 4 • Liquidity Stress Testing

Constructs worst-case liquidity scenarios to test whether reserves and credit lines are sufficient. Prepares students to build resilient liquidity contingency plans.

Lesson 1 • Integrating Budgets with Cash Forecasts

Aligns operating, capital, and financing budgets into a unified cash forecast model. Ensures budget decisions are evaluated for their cash impact before approval.

Lesson 2 • Forecast Accuracy and Variance Analysis

Measures forecast accuracy using mean absolute percentage error and root cause analysis. Drives continuous improvement in forecasting processes and assumptions.

Lesson 3 • Short-Term Cash Forecasting Methods

Covers the receipts-and-disbursements method for 13-week forecasts. Grounds forecasting practice in the cash flow statement skills from Chapter 2.

Lesson 4 • Rolling Forecast Best Practices

Designs a rolling forecast process that replaces static annual budgets with dynamic updates. Increases organizational agility in responding to cash flow changes.

Lesson 1 • Accruals, Prepayments, and Cutoff

Covers period-end accrual entries, prepaid expense amortization, and cutoff procedures. Ensures expenses and revenues are recorded in the correct accounting period.

Lesson 2 • Five-Step Revenue Recognition Framework

Walks through contract identification, performance obligations, and transaction price allocation. Builds on the matching principle introduced in Chapter 1.

Lesson 3 • Deferred and Accrued Revenue

Distinguishes deferred revenue liabilities from accrued revenue assets and their balance sheet treatment. Prevents misstatement of both revenue and cash flow.

Lesson 4 • Long-Term Contract Accounting

Applies percentage-of-completion and cost-recovery methods to multi-period contracts. Addresses the timing mismatches between cash receipts and revenue recognition.

Lesson 1 • Net Present Value and IRR Analysis

Applies NPV and IRR to rank competing investment proposals using projected cash flows. Builds directly on the forecasting skills developed in Chapter 5.

Lesson 2 • Post-Investment Review and Impairment

Conducts post-completion audits and applies impairment testing to underperforming assets. Closes the capital investment cycle with accountability and balance sheet accuracy.

Lesson 3 • Capex Classification and Capitalization

Distinguishes capital expenditures from operating expenses and applies capitalization thresholds. Directly affects both the cash flow statement and asset values from earlier chapters.

Lesson 4 • Depreciation Methods and Cash Impact

Compares straight-line, declining balance, and units-of-production depreciation on cash and profit. Shows how depreciation choices affect tax cash flows and reported earnings.

Lesson 1 • Management Reporting Frameworks

Designs management accounts that highlight cash flow, profitability, and working capital KPIs. Integrates outputs from all prior chapters into a coherent reporting package.

Lesson 2 • Continuous Improvement in Finance Processes

Applies process mapping and lean principles to close, reporting, and forecasting cycles. Embeds a culture of efficiency and accuracy across the finance function.

Lesson 3 • Scenario and Sensitivity Analysis

Builds multi-variable sensitivity models to quantify the impact of key assumption changes. Enables executives to understand financial risk ranges before committing resources.

Lesson 4 • Cash Flow-Based Valuation

Values a business using discounted cash flow and cash flow multiples derived from FCF analysis. Applies Chapter 7 investment techniques at the enterprise level.