A Mini Review of "Practical Business Finance for Non-Financial Executives"

As I have written here previously, I have used the Skillsfuture funds given by the Singapore Government to "invest" in myself, hopefully some business finance knowledge here will give me better understanding about the numbers I look at (read investing books and investopedia is one thing but having a class probably gives more background knowledge that helps I guess).

It was a Monday (which we all have blues :p), to make it worse, I didn't sleep well the night before, but man, this course grabbed my attention entirely.

I am very fortunate that my lecturer for the course have extensive knowledge and experience (I heard he has a rather high up position in his company too O_O).

He is jovial guy who passionate about teaching and enjoys sharing his extensive working knowledge and experiences on the materials he is covering, he also uses references such as our daily expenses + salary to generate cashflow statements and balance sheets to make us grasp concepts. Great coverage yet with sufficient depth for people like me who doesn't have a background in accounting or finance.

This course covered materials such as

1. Introduction to Accounting
2. Determining Business Profitability
3. Determining Financial Health of a Business
4. Cash Generation/Usage
5. Cost of Capital
6. Capital Budgeting and Project Justification
7. Principles of Costs and their Applications

The course focuses more on corporate and management finance which I can relate to more as an investor.

Also interesting to see the differences in what the management would interpret looking at the numbers vs what business analysts' thoughts vs how I interpret as an (novice) investor.

As I have been doing my own reading for investing, this course help me connect the dots and clarify on why am I looking at a ratio, and what exactly does it mean in a corporate and management POV. It was a really an eye opener.

He also shared that he started this teaching gig because he saw his friend, who is a certified accountant, said he was working at an university. But when he was studying there, one day he saw a cleaner near him sweeping the floor in a university. To his shock, it was his accountant friend!
Another time, he saw his relative who is a hawker also live happily, despite his tough life.
This invoked some deep thoughts inside him and changed his perspective.
So he started looking for possible side avenues in case he is retrenched, ranging from Uber, taxi and teaching.

I really recommend this course for people looking to invest (some light reading in investing, Pat Dorsey's book, or a course like the Fifth Person's Investment Quadrant or Dividendmachines, to help you appreciate it even more like me). I also clarified quite a few concepts and questions I didn't understand previously there too (actually I felt I asked a lot of questions >__<).