West Yorkshire Community Accounting Service

WYCAS Services

Financial Management Training Courses 

WYCAS runs a variety of courses relating to the financial management of voluntary organisations. Details of our current programme are below.
If you would like to commission a course, please scroll down the page to see the full range of courses that we offer.

This page is updated before the start of the Autumn, Spring and Summer terms.

Current Course Programme

Course Subject

Venue

Date /Time

Further Information on cost/booking

Excel for reporting and budgets Claremont CC, Bradford 10 - 4 09/09/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772
Introduction to finance The Art House, Wakefield 10-1 11/09/2008 Telephone Samantha Jones at WYCAS on 0113 2706291
Basic bookkeeping West Leeds Healthy Living Network 10-4 25/09/2008 Telephone Tina Ashby at VAL on 0113 2977944 or Casey Rice at WLHLN on 0113 2951043
The Role of the Treasurer Voluntary Action Leeds 10-1 07/10/2008 Telephone Tina Ashby at VAL on 0113 2977944
Full Cost Recovery The Art House, Wakefield 10-4 09/10/2008 Telephone Samantha Jones at WYCAS on 0113 2706291
Basic budgeting and cash flow forecasting Voluntary Action Leeds 10-4 28/10/2008 Telephone Tina Ashby at VAL on 0113 2977944
Quickbooks for beginners CALTEC, Shipley 10-4 03/11/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772
Full Cost Recovery Bradford CVS 10-4 05/11/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772

 

Intermediate Quickbooks CALTEC, Shipley 10-4 10/11/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772
Quickbooks for beginners Fairfax House, Leeds 10-4 11/11/2008 Telephone Tina Ashby at VAL on 0113 2977944
Spreadsheets for managing accounts CALTEC, Shipley 10-4 17/11/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772
Basic bookkeeping Voluntary Action Kirklees 9.30-3.30 20/11/2008 Telephone Helen Crabtree on 01484 518457
Understanding annual and management accounts The Salvation Army, Castleford 10-4 11/12/2008 Telephone Samantha Jones at WYCAS on 0113 2706291
Quickbooks for beginners CALTEC, Shipley 10-4 15/12/2008 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772
Financial Practice and Procedures accredited course  -  for 1 day per week for 5 weeks ending 11/02/2009 Bradford CVS 10-4 commencing 14/01/2009 Telephone Diane Fox at BCVS on  01274 722772

WYCAS courses

Basic bookkeeping - Full day course
Aim To introduce participants to the basics of recording day-to-day bank and cash transactions and maintaining an asset register, in order to enable financial reports to be produced.
Content The course includes some background theory but is mostly practical, consisting of completing the bank and petty cash books for a fictional organisation along with bank reconciliation. It also includes a simple method of accounting for restricted funds and shows how to produce a simple finance report.
Basic budgeting and cash flow forecasting - Full day course
Aim To introduce participants to the basic procedures involved in producing an annual budget and cash flow forecast.
Content The course includes some background theory and looks at the different steps required to produce a budget and who should be involved. The course in mostly practical and follows a fictional organisation through the budget process involving creating budgeting for restricted and unrestricted funds. The last step is to produce a cash flow forecast by considering the timing of the budgeted income and expenditure across the year and the impact on reserves.

Combining the budget with good bookkeeping records enables ‘management accounts’ to be produced during the year – comparing budget with actual figures.

Full cost recovery - Full day course
Aim To introduce participants to the basic theory and practice behind sharing overheads (or 'core costs') between different projects
Content The course involves some background theory but is mostly practical. It follows a fictional organisation through the process of applying full cost recovery to an existing budget. It involves identifying the difference between 'direct' costs and 'overheads' and looks at ways of sharing out different types of overheads between projects. We use this process to determine the minimum amount of income that we need to 'recover' in order to finance a project within an organisation. Finally the course looks at some wider issues - reserves policies, and charging for services.
Introduction to finance - Half day course
Aim To introduce participants to what we would consider are the 4 foundation stones of good financial management, namely planning and budgeting, record keeping, reporting and setting financial controls.
Content The course is broken into 4 sections involving discussion-based exercises for the participants but does include looking at sample forms e.g. budgets, cashbooks, reports and financial procedures.
Understanding annual accounts - Half day course
AimTo introduce participants to the form and content of a set of annual accounts, including some basic interpretation and understanding of financial terms.
ContentThe course consists of a presentation followed by exercises to identify the difference between cash based accounting and accruals based accounting. There are also exercises aimed to help participants look in the right places to interpret the accounts, this includes how to work out whether an organisation is 'solvent'.
Understanding management accounts - Half day course
AimTo introduce participants to the method of reporting an organisation's progress against a budget, including some basic interpretation.
Content The course consists of a presentation followed by exercises to identify the key features of a set of management accounts. It looks at what kind of notes should be added to these reports, how to interpret the information in order to help decision making and how to compare one period's report with another in order to see if the organisation's position has improved.
Quickbooks  for beginners - Full day course
AimTo introduce participants to the QuickBooks accounting package covering basic day-to-day transactions and simple reports.
Content The course involves setting up a company file from scratch and recording some basic transactions. This includes bank payments and deposits, using a petty cash account, reconciling the bank account to bank statements, checking the quality of the records and producing an income and expenditure report.
Quickbooks intermediate - Full day course
AimTo introduce participants to budgeting, invoicing and some other useful functions within QuickBooks.
Content The course takes a brief overview of the basics and then looks at the preferences section in QuickBooks, memorising transactions, dealing with errors and manipulating reports. It also includes setting up a budget and producing budget v. actual reports, and also using the invoicing function and using sales and debtor reports to monitor who owes you money.
Setting up financial controls - Half day course
AimTo introduce participants to the idea of assessing and organisation's financial risks or weaknesses and where financial controls can help.
ContentThe course consists of a brief presentation followed by exercises, which look at different scenarios involving financial risks, that an organisation might face and what kind of controls could be used to prevent or limit the damage created by these risks. A sample set of financial rules forms part of the handouts for this course.
The role of the treasurer - Half day course
AimTo introduce participants to the role of the treasurer within a voluntary organisation.
Content The course consists of a brief presentation followed by exercises, to distinguish between the responsibilities of the management committee as a whole and those of the treasurer. The course involves looking at a list of potential jobs that need doing in an organisation and who should take responsibility for these tasks, as this may vary from one organisation to another. Participants should then be in a better position to produce a job description for a treasurer.
Preparing for the year end - Half day course
AimTo introduce participants to the production of annual accounts in terms of the jobs you will need to do and the records you need in order to make your accountant's life a little easier at the year end!
ContentThe course looks at which organisations need what type of external scrutiny of their accounts, a brief explanation of 'independent examination' and the documents required in order to carry out an examination. It also looks at some tasks that an organisation could do at the year end to make the process run smoothly. Finally it covers the format and content of a set of accounts so an organisation knows what to expect to come back from their accountant.
Financial practice and procedures - Five day level 3 NOCN accredited course
AimTo enable participants to develop a clear understanding of the basic principles of good financial practice and procedures in voluntary and community organisations.
Accreditation This is a 5-day course, accredited at level 3 by the National Open College Network (NOCN). There will be approximately 25 hours directed learning in class and learners will be expected to complete 5 assessed tasks in their own time, each taking about 2 to 3 hours. If successful, the learners will be awarded 3 NOCN credits (1 credit equates to 10 hours of learning). To give an idea of the standard required, NOCN level 3 is similar to the standard expected at AS level.
Who is it for? People who wish to be awarded NOCN credits and who will be involved to some degree in the financial management of an organisation in the voluntary and community sector. This could b staff, volunteers, committee members, trustees and directors.
ContentThe course will cover the following 5 areas: Record keeping, budgeting and cash flow forecasting, producing finance reports for the committee/trustees etc, assessing areas of financial risk and applying financial controls, understanding the legal framework for the year-end reporting and scrutiny.

Each day will involve some background theory, group discussion and exercises to apply theory to various situations.

Pre-course counselling Before booking on the course, please ensure that you contact one of the tutors to ensure that the course is appropriate for you.
Methods for all courses - The subjects and material will be presented in an accessible and user-friendly way using group work, discussion, handouts and practical exercises