Managing Tomorrow Today: Dynamic Financial Management (Financial Times Series)

Are you confused by accountancy jargon?

Do you struggle to relate accountancy information to your business activities?

Are you searching for a fast track method of understanding the financial information that faces you and what it means to your business?

With the speed of business today we need information now - dynamic information - information that changes as our business changes. The traditional approach to finance - of waiting until tomorrow to discover the implications of today's actions - is no longer acceptable. The time has come to be less reliant on accountants and more financially astute ourselves. The time has come to propel ourselves into the arena of the dynamic manager where we can manage tomorrow today.

Managing Tomorrow Today will help you manage your business better using the information already at your fingertips. It will provide you with new tools and techniques to enable you to focus on the numbers necessary to diagnose the health of your business and project its performance in the future. By capturing the appropriate information and applying the appropriate time and effort to understand the financial aspects of your business you will be able to maximize profits with minimum effort. This book outlines a new approach where the numbers work with you, for you, and where the finances of your business can be brought back into focus.

Design your company's future. Manage tomorrow today.

Managing Tomorrow Today is based on a course developed by the authors to help entrepreneurs and business managers understand finance in their business. By adopting dynamic financial management tools and techniques you can understand and improve your business performance, enabling you to keep your finger firmly on the pulse.

This book won't teach you standard accountancy practices, how to produce a profit and loss, or how to calculate your liquidity ratio. What it will do is teach you how to control and communicate the performance of your business to the professionals and understand more than they do about the finances of your business. It describes the key indicators that both drive the business and reflect business activities and management decisions, such as what is the maximum discount you can give without eating away all your profits, or how much money you need to fund a sales increase.

Dynamic financial management is all about learning which figures to focus on and how to really get them to work for you. It's also about learning which figures to ignore - the time wasters. The authors are keen advocators of the 80:20 rule - 80% information for 20% effort. With this in mind, they show you how to pinpoint the relevant figures and key indicators quickly without having to wade through a sea of statistics.

The book incorporates decision-making methods based on mathematical modelling that increase the user knowledge of their business and reduce risk in their decisions. That doesn't mean that you'll be bombarded with mathematical jargon and incomprehensible calculations. The techniques are presented in an easy-to-understand manner, with a wealth of visual aids and complementary case studies.

Managing Tomorrow Today is an ideal resource for small companies that cannot afford to employ an accountant or for companies with an accountant who want to understand what it is they do or should be doing. It will enable you to take control of your company's finances, function more effectively and make good business decisions today for success tomorrow.

Visit the accompanying website at www.dfmuk.com

Bill Snaith B.A, M.Sc., C.Eng, MBCS is the Director of Medium Enterprise Development, in the Foundation for SME Development at the University of Durham. He has combined his extensive business experience with his knowledge of management development to design and deliver specialist courses aimed at the managers in growing and entrepreneurial businesses. Bill's career has also involved the management, design and implementation of Information Systems in large and small organisations. His Masters degree in Business Project Management, has developed the idea of the business as a total system, an approach at the heart of Dynamic Financial Management.

Jane Walker B.Sc., MBA is a freelance consultant specialising in the development of medium sized businesses and their managers. She has 20 years business experience including management within large, medium and small sized businesses. In the last 10 years she has forged links with many academic institutions to bridge the gap between academia and management practice. Her earlier career, which included auditing company accounting and financial analysis with a major multinational company, has helped her see the world of finance from both the practitioner and the business manager's point of view.