I have two discussion needs responses must be respectful, and substantial (include supporting details and facts). Try having a spirit of inquiry, and feel free to ask questions to further your understanding of the post or to promote further discussion. In addition, make sure you support your response by using references. please reply to post 1 & post 2 separately, with two references each.
Post 1
1. Explain the idea that finance is a method of getting money into and out of an organization.
• Each organization needs to have revenue coming in so it can take care of its expenses. Revenue is the inflow, or what is coming into a company. For instance, when referring to a hospital, its revenue will come from its patients, and investors. Expenses are the outflow of an organization. In a hospital setting, expenses are what the organization pays for such as staff, medical equipment, and supplies. An organization’s revenue should remain higher than its expenses. When revenue is lower it results in an organization spending more money which can lead to reducing its expenditures. This means a hospital will not be making money so it will need to cut back on facility, and equipment upgrades, as well as paying employees less or having to let go of employees. It can also result in fewer patient services due to limited equipment, or little to no supplies.
2. Describe why every manager can improve the financial performance of an organization.
• The four functions of management are planning, organization, control, and directing, and evaluating. These are areas where management can help improve financial performance. Of course, some managers can only have control over specific departments, but it can still result in helping the financial performance of an organization. Planning is when management gets together and comes up with plans and ideas to address the issues that are in question. Organization is the process where management creates the budget to be able to set the plan into motion. Management will compare what they need to what they have to get the outcome they are looking for. Control and directing happen once management has already set goals and has established a budget. Managers will also be monitoring any changes good or bad that come about. For example, If the emergency room recruited new hires, and staff, patients should be getting seen and discharged faster than before. Finally, during the evaluation period, management will go over their plans and see what impact has been made. Evaluating is an important part of the management system because it determines how successful the original plan was and if the financial goals have been met.
3. Describe the four parts of financial management.
• The four parts of financial management are the original records, the information system, accounting system, and reporting system. The original records are what shows the proof of sale on goods, services, or labor. The information system gathers all the data. The accounting system is where the data is recorded. The reporting system is the summary and what reports financial performance. An example of these four parts can be an employee’s timecard. The original record is where an employee clocks in for the day. The information and accounting system can be a program an organization uses, such as kronos, which gathers and records all the hours an employee has worked. The reporting system would be an employee’s paycheck. A paycheck shows how many hours have been worked in a certain pay period.
4. Explain the purpose of pie charts, column charts, run charts, scatter diagrams, and histograms.
• Pie Charts display a distribution of different categories. They are usually represented in different percentages. These percentages should be equal to a whole, or one hundred percent.
• Insert column charts can also be called bar charts, or bar graphs. These charts are more commonly seen with respect to the pie chart. Insert columns display numerical differences between different groups or quantities. The Charts usually display these differences with vertical bars as representation for each group.
• Run charts display changes in specific variables over a specific amount of time. These charts help to monitor changes to see different trends
• Scatter or bubble charts display the relationship between two different variables. These variables can be positive/direct or negative/ inverse.
• Histogram charts display the distribution of continuous numerical data. These charts can sometimes resemble insert charts because they also display results with vertical bars.
References
Ross, T. K. (2023). Baker’s Health Care Finance: Basic Tools for nonfinancial managers (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Post 2:
Finance is described as a method of getting money into and out of an organization as it has to do with goods and services (Ross, 2022, p. 3). For instance, when customers purchase goods and services, they are contributing to the money flow that is going into a business. However, when those customers purchase those materials and resources, money is flowing out of the business because the original cost of them is being affected through the production process of said materials and resources. The main goal for many, if not all businesses, is to earn a higher revenue as opposed to the amount the business spent on the production of the goods and services.
Moreover, every manager can improve the financial performance of an organization because they have seen the company grow throughout the years. Therefore, they know how their company works and what attracts consumers as well as what helps get them earn the most money possible. Another way a manager can improve the financial performance of their business is through having a planning system. Through this way, they can keep track of every single thing that’s been going on with their business. This keeps them organized while it also helps them determine if a certain decision was worth it all.
To elaborate, the four major parts of a financial management system include planning, organizing, controlling and directing, and evaluating (Ross, 2022, p. 7-8). To start off, managers plan their business goals as well as every step that should be done to achieve those goals. They then organize ways on how to go about those plans and goals by keeping track of resources and equipment they need. Furthermore, after they have the materials they need to accomplish their goals, managers would then compare the business’ current general statistics and reports to previous ones. This is so that they can look into where the business has been the most successful to even the area that needs the most improvement. Lastly, once completing all these steps, they evaluate everything that has happened, looking at their successes and missteps.
Additionally, the purpose of pie charts, run charts, scatter diagrams, and histograms is to make it easier for the managers, supervisors, and even employees to read into their business. While pie charts show percentages, run charts show patterns and trends. Similarly, scatter diagrams represent a relationship between two quantities and histograms show a frequency distribution. These types of visualizations are beneficial when it comes to showing the finances of an organization because they lay everything out in a way that’s easier to understand.
Reference:
Ross, T. K. (2022). Baker’s Health Care Finance: Basic tools for nonfinancial managers (6th ed. ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Le
