Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
- Describe the purpose and function of financial management in an organization
Scenario
You have been an entry-level financial analyst for six months. Your supervisor, who is about to fill another entry-level financial analyst position on your team, has asked you to create a job aid about the financial analyst role to help the new hire transition smoothly. The job aid needs to describe the responsibilities of a financial analyst, the essential elements of the role, and the impact the role has on a business.
Directions
Create a job aid for a new hire to an entry-level financial analyst position. Your job aid should be thorough yet easy for someone new to the field of finance to understand. You are encouraged to use the Project One Financial Analyst Job Aid template in the Supporting Materials section to complete this assignment.
Specifically, you must address the following:
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Financial Analyst Job Aid: In this job aid, you will give a general overview of financial management and its importance to a business.
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Financial Responsibilities: Describe the responsibilities of a financial analyst.
- In this section, outline the responsibilities a financial analyst has in terms of financial management. Add 5 to 7 specific bullet points outlining these responsibilities, and use complete sentences so that expectations are clear.
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Financial Management Decisions: Discuss the importance of using financial management for business decisions, and provide examples to support your claims.
- Consider the bullet points you outlined above. How do those responsibilities help to inform management decisions, and what would happen if management didn’t have this information? This should be a brief paragraph with examples.
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Accounting Principles: Explain how accounting principles are used to analyze a business’s financial health, and provide examples to support your claims.
- Write a brief paragraph that explains accounting principles and how they are used within financial management in relation to analyzing financial health. What accounting information and approaches do financial analysts rely on, and how do they use it? What would happen if that information was not available or was not accurate?
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Financial Statements: Describe how financial statements are used to help businesses make finance-related decisions, and provide examples to support your claims.
- Consider identifying the information contained in financial statements and what financial analysts would need in order to do their job. What types of finance-related business decisions would this information help to inform? Provide real or fictional examples to help show this.
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Financial Terminology: Explain how a financial analyst would use the financial terms in their day-to-day responsibilities in a clear, easy-to-understand way.
- Define each term listed below and provide a 1- to 2-sentence explanation of how a financial analyst might use the term, especially when communicating information to management or clients, or when relaying information to inform important decisions:
- Financial statement
- Liquidity
- Working capital
- Diversification
- Time value of money
- Define each term listed below and provide a 1- to 2-sentence explanation of how a financial analyst might use the term, especially when communicating information to management or clients, or when relaying information to inform important decisions:
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Financial Responsibilities: Describe the responsibilities of a financial analyst.
What to Submit
To complete this project, you must submit the following:
Financial Analyst Job Aid
Submit your job aid as a 2- to 3- page Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, double spacing, and one-inch margins. Or, you may use the Project One Financial Analyst Job Aid Word Document template to help you complete this assignment. Sources should be cited according to APA style.
