Businesses are encouraged to step up their financial monitoring through certified professionals in order to analyse its performance, reduce losses, improve profits and detect accounting fraud. Leading financial trainers, Genesis Institute, have created exclusive courses on the topic and recommend established and evolving businesses to take the proactive approach to managing its finances by understanding financial analysis.

“You don’t have to be a finance expert in order to see when you’re business is in jeopardy and in fact, it is crucial to be able to tell the signs and see the loopholes in order to save the company before it’s too late,” said Binod Shankar CFA, Managing Director and Trainer, Genesis Institute. “Now that Dubai is booming again, it’ll become more important for lenders to ensure loans are given after careful credit analysis, for senior managers to keep an eye on their finances and for new businesses, especially SMEs, to know the ABCs of understanding the numbers to make better business decisions.”

Financial statements contain useful information for investors, lenders, customers, risk analysts, management, regulators and any other interested party. The numbers and the notes showcase how profitable the company is, how efficiently it is managing its assets, the level of borrowings and its liquidity, and whether its share is expensive or cheap, among other things. There is a wide array of tools that will quickly reveal all this and more.

Some industries, because of the nature of their operations (e.g. banking, property development and hospitality) have a slightly different set of financial statements with their own jargon. It’s important to get a grasp of this uniqueness as these are significant sectors in the GCC and the UAE.

“It may sound a bit unreal but if you crunch a few numbers you can even estimate (with some accuracy) the likelihood of a company going bankrupt! Financials can also be manipulated. Numbers can be massaged to show higher revenue, lower costs, bigger profits, larger asset base and smaller liabilities. For a lender or investor or regulator, it’s critical to know how reliable the numbers are because decisions will be made based on these numbers. In the course we talk about the many ways in which you can “cook” the books and how to detect these. We will talk about multiple real case studies, old and new, from Enron and Worldcom to Satyam and Olympus,” added Binod.

“Audits and audit reports are not what they seem to be. Therefore we will talk about what exactly is the scope of an auditor’s work and what the audit report (normally a lot of words in boilerplate language) is telling you and what it never says.”

According to Binod, financial statements also have some limitations. The typical annual report cannot (and does not) convey everything about the company and it’s important to know not just what it tells you but also what it does not tell you. These reports can be difficult to read and interpret, as they are loaded with jargon, numbers and text and complex rules. Hence it’s important to know what to look for, where you can find these in the financial statements and what the numbers mean.

Genesis Institute runs a Financial Analysis Masterclass in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi which starts with a quick overview of the basics before moving on to talk about Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Statement Fraud and Fraud Detection, Audit and Audit Reports and Bankruptcy Prediction. “It’s a deep dive into the intricate yet highly informative world of financial statements,” concluded Binod.

The course is recommended for: Financial Analysts, Corporate Bankers, Credit Risk Analysts, Rating Analysts, Equity Analysts, Financial Accountants, Management Accountants, Financial Controllers, Market Regulators, External/Internal Auditors and Board Members.

The next two-day Financial Analysis Masterclass is taking place in Dubai on 24 September and in Abu Dhabi on 19 November. Other upcoming courses can be viewed on the Genesis Institute website (www.genesisreview.com).