What can Ad Hoc Financial Analysis do to Leverage a Business?

If you have ever wondered what to learn in finance, then let us introduce you to ad hoc financial analysis. Business analytics in the earlier days saw static financial reports that relied on pre-built templates created by the IT department. Even though such reports present data in a standardized format and layout, decision-makers often require detailed information on specific data.

As a result, they had to keep going back to the IT or finance team to get a more standardized static report. It slowed down the analytics and reporting process and failed to offer consolidated data that could help solve challenging business situations. Now, that is where ad hoc financial analysis comes into the picture.

What is Ad Hoc Financial Analysis?

best Investment Banking course with placement in IndiaWhen you learn financial analysis, an important concept you will be introduced to is ad hoc financial analysis.

Ad hoc financial analysis is a review that is not pre-planned but is necessary to solve a pressing issue quickly. It involves preparing a financial report to analyze specific data that has not been considered previously or answer a particular business question that has not been addressed before.

With ad hoc analysis, decision-makers can extract insights they need without involving the IT department or requiring technical and coding skills. In addition, they are typically more visual than a static report and are ideal for non-technical users to understand.

Benefits of Ad Hoc Financial Analysis

Ad hoc analysis forms a critical part of financial analyst training and why not. It offers several benefits, all of which add up to a significant positive impact on the business.

Increased agility: An ad hoc analysis allows people across the enterprise to gather and examine data for answering specific business questions on demand. Hence, it speeds up decision-making to produce insights in a visually rich format.

Reduces workload of IT and finance departments: Since ad hoc analysis eliminates the involvement of IT and finance departments, the analytics and reporting process is expedited. Also, the IT and finance teams can focus on other daily tasks that require their attention.

User friendly: The sheer ease of using BI tools that facilitate ad hoc analysis and reporting makes it ideal for even the most non-technical user. Intuitive interfaces, dashboards, and single-use reports make the analytics as simple as it could ever be.

Customized Analysis And Reporting

Ad hoc analysis caters to a variety of business needs and helps in the preparation of customizable reports. Several BI solutions further ease the process by providing templates that limit data intake to only what is required.

Flexibility: Ad hoc analysis and reporting add a significant degree of agility and flexibility to an organization’s BI dashboards. Furthermore, ad hoc analysis and reporting tools let users easily navigate and extract relevant data to work with. Consequently, it quickens the process of gathering insights and presenting them in a format suitable for analysis.

Saves time and financial resources: The simplicity and functionality of ad hoc analysis and reporting tools eliminate the need for extra help with report creation and queries. Hence, a business can save valuable time, human effort, and finance that can be invested in other tasks.

financial analyst courseAre you looking for a financial analyst course to build your skills in core finance but unsure about what to learn in finance? Well, there are a few esteemed courses that can help you take the first step towards your professional goals.

These courses should teach you job-relevant skills, including financial statement analysis, equity research, modeling and valuation, and transaction execution. It should have an industry-oriented practical curriculum with real-world projects. Along with mock interviews, resume building, and placement services, you may also need expert guidance and mentorship throughout the course.

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How Do You Perform A Financial Analysis

Using Financial Analysis to Diagnose your Company’s Health!

Are you a financial analyst who is looking for ways to diagnose your company’s financial health? Financial analysts and business owners can use financial Statement Analysis to get a snapshot of the current financial standing. Many different types of analysis can be performed, but one popular type is liquidity ratios.

What is a Financial Analysis?

Financial Analysis is the process of identifying financial trends and reports to decide which financial options are best. Financial Statements that can be analyzed are Income statements, Cash Flow statements, Balance Sheets.

How do you use Financial Analysis?

You want to analyze how well your company’s financial performance measures up against its competitors. This information will help you determine whether or not it’s time for specific changes in the business strategy – such as a shift from marketing strategies that reach more customers with fewer costs to those that involve higher cost per customer but better returns.

A comparison between past and current financial data gives insight into where improvements need to be made. The analysis should also include an estimate of future growth prospects & the industry sector.

Some Financial Analysis Methods to Understand Company’s Health:

Horizontal Analysis
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This technique is used to evaluate financial data by comparing results & identifying y-o-y changes in the balance sheet or income statement. By analyzing this, the company’s financial strengths and weaknesses can be identified.

Vertical Analysis

This financial statement analysis is conducted to measure the company’s performance over a while. A vertical study provides high-level research and compares items to the last two years or against an industry benchmark.

Trend Analysis

financial analysis courseTrend analysis spots recent trends of increasing or decreasing finances in financial statements. It uses historical data to forecast future sales & performance.

By reviewing percent change in the balance sheet & income statement over time, companies identify expected to decrease or increase in the near future and formulate appropriate strategies to maximize or minimize it.

Ratio Analysis

Ratio analysis measures a company’s ability to pay liabilities, sell inventory, collect receivables, & pay back debt. Ratios help in measuring profitability & analyze a company’s stock as a viable investment choice.

Acid-Test Ratio

By adding cash, short-term investments, net receivables, and then calculating the sum by total current liabilities, the acid test ratio is calculated. It only measures your company’s ability to pay back its current penalties.

There are many other methods like average collection period, debt ratio, gross profit margin, operating profit margin, net profit margin, earnings per share, etc. Financial analysts are professionals who use financial statements & models to assess a company’s health.

Define your Career with Imarticus Learning:

Imarticus Learning provides an opportunity to acquire toolkits to enable careers across investment banking, corporate finance, and private equity. This skill-building program builds mastery across various functions within core finance. The program brings you an endorsed curriculum, influential faculty, and practical learning, delivering from industry experts.

This exciting financial analyst certification course uses case studies, classroom lectures, and hands-on projects to emphasize ‘learning by doing. It breaks down business valuation methods, financial modeling techniques, and financial analyst skills into digestible and understandable pieces of knowledge.

financial analyst courses in IndiaAfter completing these online finance courses, students are awarded a Certificate of Achievement, a golden ticket to the job of their dreams at leading finance firms and beyond.

For further details on online finance courses in India, contact us through the Live Chat Support system or visit our training centers in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi-Gurgaon, and Ahmedabad.

The Career Path and Salary for a CFA holder

CFA or Certified Financial Analyst is considered as a very prestigious credential when it comes to the world of finance. Those professionals who are able to clear all the levels of this exam are ushered into this charter, which consists of world-renowned finance professionals and lucrative career opportunities. It is a common belief that all those finance aspirants, who are looking to pursue CFA, are usually looking to earn big in their respective careers. While this may be the case, there are certain things that every CFA aspirant must know about. Firstly, that this examination, is really a tough nut to crack and this by no means is meant in a demotivational way. Any candidate must do a thorough research about this examination, before attempting it. This research must include the amount of time one must spend studying, as well as the various opportunities and salary trends in this field.

According to a certain statistical data of the year 2014, it was concluded that all the charter holders, or those who crack the CFA exam, usually opt for a career in Portfolio Management. This is mainly because it is considered to be the highest paying career option herein and close 22% of the applicants, chose to pursue their career in this field. While 15% of the CFA holders opt to become a Research Analyst, about 7% opt for Chief Executives, Consultants (6%), Risk Managers (5%), Corporate Financial Analysts (5%), Relationship Managers (5%) and Financial Advisers (5%). So if you are a finance aspirant looking to crack this prestigious examination, the four top positions that you should look at as career options, would be Portfolio Manager, Research Analyst, Chief Executive and Consultant. Let’s move on to the employers, who are known to hire the cream of CFA holders, across the world. These employers are most often top investment banks like JP Morgan Chase, PwC, HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UBS, Ernst & Young, RBC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and so on.

Studies show that about 60% of the CFA charter holders are usually residents of the United States of America. While according to the CFA Society of Chicago USA, the median compensation, for any fresh graduates and CFA charter holders would range anything from US$215,542 annually to about $ 154,025 per annum. Whereas, on the other hand, for someone who is just a graduate and does not hold a CFA charter, the salary would be anything around or more than US$ 85,875 per annum. Apart from USA Europe also pays these charter holders handsomely, thus a CFA charter holder would earn anything between $124,000 per annum. While it is the country of Australia, that is known to pay the highest salaries for CFA holders, while in India, it is the city of Bangalore, which pays the most.
There are a number of people, especially in India, who attempt to clear this examination every year. While most of them choose to get trained professionally, from Imarticus Learning, to better their chances of entering this coveted charter.

Overview of Careers in Finance

The field of Finance is often said to be all about the science of money management. A career in Finance would entail coordinating between assets and liabilities. The finance industry is popularly known to provide lucrative careers and demand intellect of the highest order. As a rule, this prestigious industry attracts a lot of aspirants looking for a career with great opportunities.

Possession of just a graduate degree thins the chances of getting into this field. Thus, it becomes important to either be an MBA or have a higher degree to guarantee a smooth entry herein. There are many courses like certification programs in investment banking, courses in corporate finance and so on. There are a lot of programs offering training to clear various finance exams and acquire certain designations and licenses. Lately a lot of institutes have started offering programs to clear the CFA exams (Chartered Financial Analyst) as well as for the license required to enact certain kind of transactions. One can go for any such short term or long term course to enhance their resume and better their career prospects.

Investment Banking is the most sought after career in Finance. Today, Banks are no longer limited to being agents of withdrawal and depositing of money. There are many types of banks like the investment banks, which act as financial advisors to firms, hedge funds wherein the money of wealthy individuals and companies is managed, the difference here is that there are huge risks taken when it comes to buying and selling public stocks.

Then there are Private Equity firms, which instead of buying securities (stocks) by entire corporations and make convert them into private entities. These firms then either get the corporation entirely under their own banner, or improve their financial situation to earn profits. There are also real estate firms which have their dealings in buying or developing already existing real estate projects. There are firms which deal in ‘real money’ which go on to invest money in various firms to reap the benefits of the same.

There are a lot of roles that a career in Finance offers and a college degree is not always required for them. There are a lot of aspirants, who tend to start off a stint with banks and then after a considerable experience, move on to get a MBA degree. It is imperative to know that investment banking jobs usually have cut-throat competition and roles here include mergers and acquisitions, providing financial advices in terms of financial modeling, evaluation of the firm and so on.

Financial analyst and Financial Advisors also are jobs of substance, if one is very interested to work with data and draw relevant insights; the former career is always preferred. The job profile of a Financial Advisor, with the flexibility of the work and the proximity to the clients as well as the fact that the competition is less, is chosen by quite a few. There are many other career profiles like working for hedge fund firms, private equity firms, portfolio managing jobs, trading, analyst jobs etc. There are also Investment Banking Media jobs, where someone with great communication skills and a sparkling knowledge of the market can work with media houses.

The field of Finance offers high quality careers which demand individuals with great intellect and motivation, in addition to the challenging environment and great compensation. The fact that there is such high competition to get into this field, goes to prove that one needs to have refined skill set for the same.

Imarticus Learning is a renowned education institute offering a host of short term and long term courses in investment banking, corporate finance and more.