Financial Resiliency Workshops
AFOA Canada developed a series of workshops and webinars starting in 2021 to support strengthened financial management and governance in Indigenous communities and organizations:
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- Bookkeeping Foundations Courses: Eight introductory-level courses to support new bookkeepers and administrators working in finance.
- Leadership Excellence Series: Fourteen one-hour webinars aimed at elected officials and senior executives on governance and financial oversight.
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The webinars were recorded and will be available for viewing below, for workshop delivery contact workshops@afoa.ca for more information.
Bookkeeping Foundations Courses
- How accounting information is used
- Accounting principles and the accounting cycle
- Understanding Financial Statement – basics
- Segregation of Duties and Financial Control
- Budgeting and Budget Variance Analysis
- Sub-ledgers
- GL and Journal Entries
- Bank Reconciliations
- Accounts Payable
- Recording Transfer Payments and Revenue Recognition
- Payroll Administration Rules
- Payroll administration and payroll providers
- How to create, maintain and report individual payroll records
- What is a Chart of Accounts and how to use it
- Tips for setting up your Chart of Accounts
- How to enter, adjust and report typical daily and year-end business transactions
- Understanding funding agreement requirements
- Fund accounting – maintaining records of expenses
- Monitoring budgets for funding agreements
- Recording revenue for funding agreements
- Reporting on funding agreements
- Purpose of external financial statement audit
- Process of preparing financial information for external auditors
- Common strategies for minimizing issues and costs
- Understand technology
- Increase efficiency and effectiveness of the purchasing and accounts payable process
- Improve the timelines and accuracy of reporting on expenditures
- Understand budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis processes
- Understand importance for effective and efficient management of the organization’s financial affairs
Leadership Excellence Series
- Roles and responsibilities of Council and of executive management
- Financial responsibilities of Council and executive management
- Examples of governance best practices
- Approaches to facilitate effective meetings and encourage participation
- How to work towards consensus/agreement
- The difference between strategic and operational planning
- How vision, mission, goals, and performance measures connect.
- The planning process
- What a conflict of interest is
- Common instance where they occur
- How to proactively manage conflicts of interest
- How to make decisions and respond
- Roles, responsibilities and functions of the Finance and Audit Committee
- Financial controls
- Financial Administration Law (FAL)
- Types of internal financial reports for Council
- How to read and analyze internal finance reports to support decision-making
- Questions to ask the finance function
- Purpose of the audited financial statements
- Sections of the audited financial statement and what it tells the reader
- Decisions that the audited financial statement can support
- Different Executive positions that can be filled and their roles and responsibilities
- Skillsets and experiences of desirable candidates
- Evaluating candidates
- Understand the purpose and intent of internal unaudited financial reports
- How to use information to guide decisions
- Understand purpose and intent of finance policies
- Using policies to protect and safeguard financial assets
- Understand the purpose and intent of HR policies
- Using policies to protect the employee and Nation
- Understand the purpose and intent of banking relationships
- Understand the impact these relationships have on the Nations financial assets
- Understand the purpose and intent of establishing community trusts
- How trusts can impact the future generations of the community
- Understand the purpose and intent of creating, implementing and monitoring the community comprehensive plan
- How these plans can be used in short term goal setting
For More Information
If you have any questions or would like information about the Bookkeeping Fundamentals Courses or Leadership Excellence Series, please do not hesitate to contact the Training and Events Team.