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Are You Allergic to Numbers?

Written by Samantha Lauver-Marion | May 7, 2024 12:54:14 PM

Do you find yourself at home when you work with numbers? Or does your brain just shut down when finance and accounting topics come up? If you, like many people, are in the second group, now is your chance to finally overcome this hurdle!

Deloitte and AIHM make it easier than you think. Gain the confidence to take part in financial conversations. Learn how to read the most common financial documents. Discover easy tools you can use to make smart decisions based on financial data.

Deloitte expert Nongnuch Laomaneerattanaporn leads the upcoming course on Finance for Non-Finance Professionals at AIHM’s Bangkok campus. What makes this course so special? Can it be your key to finally overcoming your allergy to numbers? Find out now in our conversation below


Interview with Deloitte Finance Expert Nongnuch Laomaneeratanaporn

SLM: Thank you so much for joining us today to have a discussion about the upcoming Finance for Non Finance Professionals course delivered by Deloitte Thailand at the Asian Institute of Hospitality Management. Could you introduce yourself and the subject of the course to our readers?

NL: Thank you, Samantha. My name is Nongnuch Laomaneerattanaporn. I’m a Partner at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Jaiyos Advisory Co. Ltd.

This upcoming course is one that’s specially designed for non-financial professionals, for people who don’t have a background in finance but who need to understand financial concepts for their job or for personal development. It’s a course designed to bridge the gap between financial jargon and practical understanding for individuals from various backgrounds—for example, if you come from marketing, or operations, or human resources, or any other non-finance field. If you fit this description, you’ll find this is an excellent course for you to join because we’ll teach you finance and important financial terms and concepts in a way that’s simple to understand.

You’ll find it easy to finally understand the meaning behind each line item in a financial statement. You’ll understand each component in a financial statement. You’ll discover how to read a balance sheet and understand the details of the information there. You’ll understand how to read and use P&L statements. We’ll explain what you need to know about the bottom line, the profit a company is able to generate for the year after you factor in the expenses. You’ll understand cash flow and how to read and evaluate cash flow statements so you can know about a company’s liquidity—how to determine the status of a company’s liquidity via the cash flow statement.

SLM: It's amazing to hear about how learners joining this course can come from any area of business to learn more about finance. This is a great course for people who want to learn finance fundamentals so they can feel more confident in these topics and so they can apply this knowledge in their workplace to increase the profits generated by their company.

Could you tell us what practical skills and tools will learners walk away with upon completing the course?

NL: One of the biggest takeaways will be learning how to read a financial statement as we were just discussing. You’ll learn what information a financial statement tells you.

For this special course, we also give learners recommended ways to use simple Excel functions a tool in evaluating accounting and financial statements. You’ll learn how to use these kinds of tools to help you summarise the data. You’ll learn to make simple formulas to understand where the numbers come from or to work with the numbers you see in each ledger.

Also, in this course we learn about financial ratios, for example the debt-to-equity ratio, and other kinds of ratios such as the return-on-equity ratio. We’ll teach you how you as a non-financial professional can use these kinds of ratios as a decision-making criteria.

If you’re a participant in this course, you’ll learn the basic finance concepts, simple formulas and simple ratio calculations you can use to make smart and profitable decisions.

SLM: Thank you so much. This course sounds fascinating and really beneficial. It sounds like learners will gain a lot of things they can use to positively impact their relationships with the finance teams in their organisations, and they’ll walk away with some extremely useful tools they use can use within their companies. Do you have any advice for future participants of this course?

NL: Yes, absolutely. Because the word “finance” is right in the course name, because finance is the topic of the course, some people might automatically feel nervous about it. Maybe there are some people with a fear of numbers, a fear of mathematics. But I would like to say, the accounting topics and tools you’ll learn with us are not at all complicated math. It’s just simple math and very easy calculations. This course is designed to make things simple and easy, especially for people that don’t consider themselves “numbers” people.

You’ll learn that the basic calculations in accounting and financial statements are not so complex. With the way this course is designed, you’ll understand the most important finance concepts you need to know, you’ll understand the components you see on a financial statement, and you’ll learn how to use easy-to-calculate ratios to make smart financial decisions.

SLM: You’ve heard it from Khun Nongnuch: this course is designed around simple math in accounting and finanical statements; there’s no reason to be afraid of numbers!

If you'd like to learn more about this course offered by Deloitte Thailand at AIHM, feel free to visit our website or reach out with any questions.

 

Overcome Your Fear of Numbers

Register for the Deloitte-AIHM “Finance for Finance Professionals” course now.

 

Empower Your Team

If you have any questions about how you can support your organisation’s various teams in becoming more confident to communicate and work confidently with your financial team, we’d be very happy to talk with you.

Please contact Samantha Lauver-Marion, Director of Global Partnerships at AIHM.