CMA Exam Prep — Part 2: Strategic Financial Management

About this course

What you'll learn

• Analyze financial statements using comparative techniques and ratios.
• Apply risk and return, cost of capital, financing and working capital concepts.
• Use CVP, marginal analysis and pricing methods to support decisions.
• Identify, assess and respond to enterprise risks.
• Evaluate capital investments with NPV, IRR, payback and sensitivity analysis.
• Resolve ethical issues using the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice.

Course details

Level

advanced

What's included

• 18 lessons
• Progress tracking
• Certificate of completion

Requirements

• Working knowledge of financial statements, time value of money, statistics and business economics (assumed by ICMA).

Curriculum

1. 01

   Lesson 1: Comparative Statement Analysis and Financial Ratios

   Common-size, common-base-year and trend analysis of financial statements, followed by liquidity, leverage, activity, profitability and market ratios, each computed step by step from a common data set.

   90m
2. 02

   Lesson 2: Profitability Analysis

   Income, revenue, cost-of-sales and expense analysis that explains the drivers behind a reported profit figure, variation (variance) analysis of period-to-period changes, and DuPont decomposition of return on equity into margin, turnover and leverage.

   85m
3. 03

   Lesson 3: Special Issues in Financial Statement Analysis

   Foreign exchange effects on consolidated statements, the impact of changing prices and inflation on comparability, the effects of accounting changes, the gap between accounting and economic concepts of value and income, and the indicators used to assess earnings quality.

   85m
4. 04

   Lesson 4: Risk and Return and Long-Term Financial Management

   Measuring return and risk, the risk-return trade-off and diversification, the term structure of interest rates, types of long-term financial instruments, weighted-average cost of capital, and valuation of bonds and stock.

   90m
5. 05

   Lesson 5: Raising Capital and Working Capital Management

   Financial markets and institutions, IPOs and secondary offerings, dividend policy and share repurchases, lease financing, debt financing, and the management of net working capital, cash, marketable securities, receivables, inventory, and short-term credit.

   90m
6. 06

   Lesson 6: Corporate Restructuring and International Finance

   Mergers and acquisitions and other forms of corporate restructuring, and the international finance topics of exchange rate regimes, managing transaction exposure, and financing international trade.

   85m
7. 07

   Lesson 7: Cost/Volume/Profit Analysis

   Breakeven units and dollars, target profit before and after tax, margin of safety, operating leverage, and breakeven analysis for a multiple-product sales mix.

   85m
8. 08

   Lesson 8: Marginal Analysis for Short-Run Decisions

   Relevant, sunk, and opportunity costs; marginal cost and revenue; special orders; make-vs-buy; sell-or-process-further; add/drop segment decisions; and allocating a scarce resource under capacity constraints.

   90m
9. 09

   Lesson 9: Pricing

   Cost-plus and market-based pricing methodologies, target costing, price elasticity of demand, product life-cycle pricing strategies, and the effect of market structure on pricing power.

   80m
10. 10

    Lesson 10: Types of Risk and Enterprise Risk Management Frameworks

    Classifies strategic, operational, financial, hazard and compliance risk; walks through the eight (and updated five) COSO ERM 2017 components and principles; and contrasts COSO ERM with the ISO 31000 risk management process.

    80m
11. 11

    Lesson 11: Risk Identification and Assessment

    Builds the quantitative and qualitative toolkit for assessing risk: likelihood/impact matrices and heat maps, risk appetite versus tolerance, value at risk, scenario and sensitivity analysis, and expected loss computation.

    90m
12. 12

    Lesson 12: Risk Mitigation Strategies and Managing Risk

    Covers the four risk response strategies — avoid, reduce, share, accept — along with insurance and hedging as risk-sharing/reduction tools, residual risk, key risk indicators, ongoing monitoring, and the link to business continuity planning.

    85m
13. 13

    Lesson 13: Capital Budgeting Process and Incremental Cash Flows

    The stages of the capital budgeting process, the incremental cash flow principle, classifying initial, operating and terminal cash flows, working capital investment and recovery, tax depreciation shields, and after-tax disposal proceeds.

    85m
14. 14

    Lesson 14: Evaluating Uncertainty and Discount Rates

    Risk-adjusted discount rates, scenario and simulation analysis for assessing project uncertainty, real options embedded in capital projects, and the use of weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) as the hurdle rate.

    80m
15. 15

    Lesson 15: Capital Investment Analysis Methods

    Net present value, internal rate of return, payback and discounted payback, profitability index, how the methods compare and sometimes conflict on mutually exclusive projects, and sensitivity analysis.

    90m
16. 16

    Lesson 16: Business Ethics

    Ethical decision-making models used to reason through a dilemma, and the major categories of business fraud, including financial statement fraud, asset misappropriation and corruption.

    75m
17. 17

    Lesson 17: Ethical Considerations for Management Accounting and Financial Management Professionals

    The IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice principles and standards, the fraud triangle, and the IMA-recommended process for evaluating and resolving an ethical conflict.

    85m
18. 18

    Lesson 18: Ethical Considerations for the Organization

    Organizational factors shaping an ethical culture, the role of ethical leadership, legal compliance frameworks including the FCPA and Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower provisions, responsibility for ethical conduct, sustainability and social responsibility, and data ethics.

    80m