CPA in a Day: The Business Acumen You Actually Need

CPA in a Day: The Business Acumen You Actually Need

Did you know that “business acumen” has emerged as a “vehicle for improving financial performance and leadership development?”

An understanding of accounting and finance is essential for those who want to take on more responsibility at their organization and continue to advance their career. Whether your focus is the entire business, an individual product line, or a single department or cost center, knowing basic accounting and finance terms and standards are key to making good decisions and evaluating the decisions being made around you.

This means it’s time for you to learn the basics of your organization’s financial statements, including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, and how to analyze those statements using key financial ratios. This will provide you the confidence you need in your current position, aid in the development of necessary leadership skills to advance, and overall, allow you to contribute to the achievement of financial objectives at your organization.

Financial metrics are also critical for communication with those external to the organization – shareholders, financial institutions, customers, suppliers, and regulators. Understanding the professional ethics and conduct standards of financial professionals is essential to fulfill responsibilities to these, and all, stakeholders.

Financial professionals must be trusted advisors. Trust is earned through competence, acting in the public (not self) interest, and performing with the highest sense of integrity. As, sadly, these principles are not always upheld, we will also spend some time dissecting financial scandals in recent times to provide you with the skills to detect common accounting misdeeds such as inflated revenues and understated costs.

You may not be a CPA, but you will leave with the business acumen you actually need to become a knowledgeable, trusted “financial” decision-maker, advisor, and leader.

About Amanda "Jo" Erven, CPA, CIA, CFE

Amanda “Jo” Erven, CPA, CIA, CFE, is the President and Founder of Audit. Consulting. Education. LLC. After a successful career in external/internal audit and accounting, Jo is now an active Internal Audit Strategist, Higher Education Professor, Author, and Speaker, providing Continuing Professional Education (CPE) hours, live and virtually, to organizations across the globe.

Jo’s firm is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of CPE and delivering unique, insightful training to professionals is her favorite “wing” of her business.

Jo has published a book and workbook on her trademarked approach to Internal Audit, entitled Total Quality Audit: How a Total Quality Mindset Can Help Internal Audit Add Real Value, as well as a personal development book entitled, Our Choices on the Road of Life.

Jo’s biggest honor was receiving a “Woman to Watch” Leader of Note award by the Colorado Society of CPAs (COCPA) in conjunction with the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) for her work in the Accounting/Auditing profession, as well as her community support efforts and mentorship of others to achieve their personal and professional goals. Jo’s ultimate passion is helping organizations see how important living your values… ethics, integrity, honesty, trust… is to sustaining success. In fact, her number one requested presentation for corporations and associations is “The Everyday Ethicist,” which reminds us all how to turn our values into everyday actions. See Jo in action here!

All tickets include recording of the event.

Host or Publisher Leadership USA, Inc.