Fundamentals of Financial Analysis

Making decisions based on financial data is essential to the success of any company. This accounting and finance Professional Certificate, brought to you by Babson College, the #1 school in Entrepreneurship (U.S. News & World Report), will give learners the foundational accounting and finance skills needed to make critical business decisions.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, in management, or looking to become a financial analyst, this program will help you make informed decisions by teaching you financial fundamentals: terms, metrics, and the pillars of primary financial statements: income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow.

You'll learn how to interpret and use the information contained in financial statements to make key operating decisions, evaluate a company’s performance, and create forecasts of profits and cash flow. You will learn how to use ratios to diagnose a company's financial health and apply these concepts and tools to valuation, liquidity and other factors for sound decision-making.

What you'll learn

• How primary financial statements are constructed and what types of information are captured in each statement.
• How to calculate key performance ratios and use those metrics to evaluate the performance of your business.
• How to create a financial forecast that you can use to better manage your business and to present to potential investors and creditors.
• Apply data analysis to managerial decisions, especially in start-ups.