Advanced Topics in Health Care Accounting

This 1.5 day course covers in more detail some of the topics in the fundamentals course, including work order systems, financial statement accounting, financial planning, cost of service and rate design, activity-based accounting, capital credits, investment strategies, debt portfolio management, internal control procedures, and other similar topics. Participants will learn about:

  • Internal controls
  • Accounting for investments and derivative financial instruments
  • Accounting for long-lived assets
  • Financial statement analysis
  • Joint ownership of capacity
  • Functionalizing costs
  • Rate relationships
  • Budgeting and managerial accounting
Budgeting and Financial Analysis
This course covers the procedures necessary to prepare annual capital and expense budgets for your organization. The concepts of zero based budgeting, activity based budgeting, and extrapolation budgeting will be discussed. For the capital budgeting, commonly used methods to evaluate alternative capital projects will be discussed including present-value (worth) analysis, discounted cash flow, annual cost, payback periods, and cost-benefit ratios. In the expense budget, the use of operating ratios, such as the quick ratio, plant-revenue ratio, equity, TIER and DSC will also be discussed. Actual capital and expense budgets will be utilized in the course and budget spreadsheets will be given to attendees.
Financial Audits: "What They Are and What They Aren't"
This one-day course is designed to provide managers, directors, and employees in non-financial roles, with an overview of the audit process. The course will seek to help answer: what role do auditors play, what is a financial audit, why do businesses need an audit, who can perform audits, what are the guidelines that must be followed, and who gets the audit report and what are they supposed to do with it. This course is a must for anyone in a management capacity or interested in learning more about the auditing process.
Forming an Audit Committee (or improving the one you have): What You Really Need to Know

Audit committees are valuable resources for all organizations that require audits, including non-profit organizations. In light of increased public scrutiny, due to recent corporate scandals, organizations must seek ways to maintain customer trust. The existence of an effective audit process and audit committee can help an organization maintain or restore trust in their organization. This course is designed to lay out a framework for developing a functional audit committee or for reviewing the status of an existing process and structure. Participants in this one-day training session will gain insight and working knowledge of:

  • Advantages and disadvantages of audit committees
  • How an audit committee should be structured and function
  • Who should serve on an audit committee
  • Why your organization needs an audit committee charter, and how to form such a charter
Fraud Prevention: The Key to Saving Your Business Money

This one-day class is designed principally for Accountants of all levels as well as those in Management. The focus of the class will concern a review of common types of fraud, their increased occurrence, an understanding of the prevalence of fraud, and how organizations are responding to this problem. The class will include a discussion of fraud deterrence methods, including techniques to strengthen internal controls to prevent fraud as well as steps and processes used in detecting fraud. Participants will be exposed to the use of various internal control items such as COSO as well as how to investigate internal fraud, and the use of various interviewing techniques. Participants in this program will gain useful insight into:

  • The high cost of fraud
  • Various methodologies for detecting and preventing fraud
  • How to distinguish between perpetrators and the victims
  • Understanding the characteristics and demographics of those who commit fraud
  • Preventing fraud and understand how to develop a successful fraud prevention program
Fundamentals of Health Care Accounting

This 1 day course covers the fundamentals of accounting for new accountants and those involved in related jobs that have need to understand how accounting affects other aspects of the business. This course will cover the basics of operations and terminology, and will cover the following accounting topics: Using a prescribed uniform system of accounts (e.g., FERC or RUS), cash versus accrual accounting, work order systems for capitalizing self-constructed plant, the general ledger and subsidiary ledgers, the four accounting cycles (revenue, collections, disbursements, and payroll). Participants will learn about such items as:

  • The unique nature of accounting
  • Accounting hierarchy
  • Four sets of books
  • Financial statement presentation and disclosures
  • Important FASB interpretations
  • Uniform system of accounts
  • Financing Issues
  • Other operations accounting
The Non-Financial Manager's Guide to Health Care Accounting

This one day course is designed for individuals with little or no financial training or background. The course presents a general overview of basic financial management practices for health care organizations. Participants will gain insight into the development and administration of operating budgets as well as basic understanding of planning and financing capital investments. In addition, the class will cover various aspects of financial reporting. Additional topics covered in the session include:

  • Reading financial statements
  • Financial forecasting basics
  • Equity Management
  • Corporate Governance issues