Financial Resource Management Reaching a Financial Decision

Financial Resource Management

Reaching a financial decision regarding heath care services

All forms of industries deemed financial management as expressive in origin till the 1960's. Its basic and sole role was to ensure financing for completing the business's operatives and functions. The department for business planning or marketing would project a net total for meeting the services and meeting daily demands; managers would calculate the assets required to complete a given project needed, equipment's, supplies and building. Financial management is a field which focuses on business securities as well as the markets in which they are in key demand. Also, more emphasis is made on how businesses can tap new markets and unlock their hidden potential. As a result, financial management books were pretty explanatory and predictable in origin during those times. (Sandrick, 2008).

These days, financial management plays a pivotal role in day-to-day operations of a business. The responsibility of financial management has been to plan in advance, take measure, secure funding for rainy day and maximize potential and efficiency of a company to its advantage. Capital finance is the other name given to financial management. The aims and objectives of financial management vary with the type of business, so that discussion will be covered later on. Accounting and financial management are treated as separate department in bigger corporations. The accounting department still falls under the wing of corporation's chief financial officer (CFO) and therefore falls under the finance department on the whole (Sandrick, 2008).

The financial management covers the following responsibilities for prospective students:

Evaluation and planning: The most mandatory operation of every financial management is to evaluate if it's working efficiently and effectively as an organization with plans intact for the future (TPC, 2009).

Long-term investment plans: These decisions lies with the senior members of a management, but managers at each level must be assigned with the task of capital allocation and investment procedures. These kinds of decisions involve purchasing new equipment's and facilities for the company. They fall under fixed assets. They are tools for strategic plans and involve in day-to-day operations of a business and in betterment for its future (TPC, 2009).

Monetary decisions: Corporations needs to purchase assets imperative for running operations, thus they raise funds. Internal funds and external funds can be made use of in this case, equity capital and debt is argued upon, and short-term debt and long-term debt are discussed. Senior officers make the tough decisions, but these decisions are taken by managers at their own respective levels (TPC, 2009).

Operating capital management: Each organization has assets such as marketable securities, cash, inventories and receivables to be managed. That ensures costs are cut down and operational capacity is maintained at all times. Managers from bottom to top level are involved. That's why working capital management is termed as working capital management (TPC, 2009).

Contract management: The healthcare corporations have to deal with monitoring, signing and negotiating contracts with other similar companies and deal with third parties as well. Financial staff is entitled with this responsibility which comes under supervision of managers as well. The managers must overlook all these responsibilities and ensure work is sealed (TPC 2009).

Financial risk management: Most financial deals are sealed to secure the day-to-day operations of any business and decrease the risk aligned to a business. Thus, financial risk element must be minimized by the financial management (TPC, 2009).

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Examining the healthcare financial management is both intriguing and interesting. It is intriguing because numerous concepts have their own directives for personal and professional behavior. It is worthwhile because healthcare atmosphere these days and in the nearby future will be compelling the managers to stress more on financial complications while making a policy on operating decisions (Allen and Bombardieri, 2008).

What ways were the outcomes specific to the target population or the intended audience?

The designated outcomes for this course include the following:

Students understand the theoretical framework and their implementation of all basic and currently popular notions of financing as well as accounting.

Designing and assessing evaluation plans, investment plans and contractual requirements amongst other basic aspects and theories of financial management

Students are well-aware of the industry they are getting into, i.e. The healthcare industry in this case, and its current requirements.

Students are well aware of economics and economic theorems and structures

What extent were the outcomes measurable with a timeframe for completion?

The outcomes were achievable within the time frame of two years. Hence, the extent of completion of outcomes was actually left incomplete as the subject of economics was not thoroughly and individually covered and the overall financial resource management outside the healthcare industry was not dealt with in detail either. On the contrary, the basic principles and theories of finance management and accounting were thoroughly covered and the students were well aware of the industry that they were going to work into.

Extent that the learner objectives specific enough for prospective students

Perhaps one of the key differences that the students must learn though the course for financial resource management is the difference of approach for health services in private and public sectors. The course clearly denotes that health services that are related to not for profit organizations (government and private) are poles apart from investor-based businesses. Moreover, students also learn that the bigger chunks of the payments are sent by dedicated anonymous third parties, not by the patients who are the consumers in this case. Students can interpret the financing in this case as government funding or a business funding. Also, in this case the employers buy health insurance whereas the individual receiving the services should. An earlier book by Glaser (2004) can be a good and helpful guideline for the students also as it focuses on avenues in which healthcare industry influence the impending financial decisions (Glaser, 2004). In this particular scenario the course is specific for the prospective students. Where the course goes astray is dealing with the economics knowledge of the students as there is very little knowledge expended on the actual subject of economics, which is a necessity, but the course main deals with economic structures as they relate to financial management only.

Relationship between the outcomes and the objectives

The finance resource management course objectives primarily include processes of budget preparation, analysis, and monitoring are essential for analyzing the financial performance of an organization, service, or system. It also further includes the comprehension of how the concepts of financial accounting and reporting, as well as basic economic principles, are applied. The end objective is that the students become capable of using use budgetary and economic concepts and principles for financial decision-making for a health care service or unit. The relationship to the objectives thus to the outcomes can only be positive under the following circumstances:

Students understand the theoretical framework and their implementation of all basic and currently popular notions of financing as well as accounting.

Designing and assessing evaluation plans, investment plans and contractual requirements amongst other basic aspects and theories of financial management

Students are well-aware of the industry they are getting into, i.e. The healthcare industry in this case, and its current requirements.

Students are well aware of economics and economic theorems and structures

The finance resource management is equipped to help students complete and achieve the first tow outcomes but the attainment of the first outcome is weak. Hence, we can say that the relationship between the objectives and the first two outcomes is positive and the relationship between the objectives and the last aforementioned outcome is negative.

Learning theories useful for this course

Some of the theories discussed below are all crucial theories to learn and implement during a financial resource management course and especially when dealing with the budgeting and accounting aspects of the financial resource management.

Financial management is deemed as a decision making discipline. Accounting assists the policy makers to estimate the budget and measure the financial competency of a company and make a decision. Also, it provides theoretical concepts as well as tools to facilitate better decision making. Therefore, the end result of this paper is to assist the healthcare students and managers to reach practical decisions and become competent decision makers while understanding the basic differences between general accounting methods and finance management. The recent book by Allen and Bombardieri (2008) is a good read nonfinancial managers, irrespective of financial specialists and those with accounting experience or those who are heading into the healthcare industry soon will find this book pretty handy and informative (Allen and Bombardieri, 2008).

Taxing and all related theories and their practical implications must be clearly understood by the students as well. Perhaps the most interesting aspect for students to investigate currently will be the recognition that the dividend and interest taken from the securities bought by the not for profit company with cash influx is not liable to be taxed. They will need to know and observe that not for profit companies are forbidden to issue tax exempt bonds for the intention of further investment into various other securities. The theory for taxing does allow them however, in practical terms, to invest some amount in taxable securities from tax exempt issues while waiting for expenses to be taken care of. In theory it means, if not for profit companies can work in a tax arbitrage environment, they can create huge amounts of income just by dispensing tax exempt bonds with the intention of capitalizing in bigger yielding securities which are taxable to investors outside not for profit industry. For instance, the not for Profit Company can sell tax exempt bond with 5% interest rate and take the revenues generated to put into U.S. Treasury bond which generate 6% (Helvin, 2008).

Equity or debt capital can be employed to finance a company's assets. Both these theories and their practical implementations are thus important to study here as well. In case financing is done by means of debt then the payment of interest becomes a necessity. However, if the company possessed by a financier finances the assets through equity then it is required to reimburse the dividends to the shareholders. If a corporation, on which the tax is levied, is paying interest then it will be subtracted from that firm's operating income so that its taxable income is obtained. However, dividend will not be subtracted. According to Kaufman (2007), payment of dividend is done from the income obtained after tax.

The matching principle is one of the basic principles in Accounting and also a crucial theory to study in this course. This requires that all the revenues are registered in the same year as the expenses. For instance, the example can be taken of Northside Family Practice that purchases an x-ray machine for a cost of $100,000. This machine will become obsolete after 10 years of usage by the company. The wear and tear of capital or in this case the capital consumption allowance for the machine will be considered as the depreciation of the machine and it will have to be accordingly adjusted. This would reduce the profit of the organization, thus, the higher amount of depreciation a company registers, the less profit would be recorded. Still, it is a noncash expense and has no effect on the level of cash of the company. This in fact enhances the level of cash the company has as the amount of tax that will be levied on the earnings of the company will become lower if depreciation is deducted (Speizman, 2009).