ICAB CL Business & Finance study plan
ICAB CL Business & Finance · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 7 hours per week
Financial management: working capital, cash flow and investment appraisal
Map every working-capital component (inventory, receivables, payables, cash) to its operating cash-flow effect and compute the cash conversion cycle for two contrasting business types
Calculate NPV, IRR, payback and ARR for a single project and explain why the four methods can rank projects differently
Build a spreadsheet model that applies sensitivity analysis to a project's NPV and identify the two variables with the greatest influence
Draft a one-page memo recommending accept or reject for a project with a qualitative factor that conflicts with the numerical result
Your checkpoint
A spreadsheet workbook with two full investment appraisals plus a 300-word recommendation memo, self-marked against a checklist of common errors
Financial management: working capital, cash flow and investment appraisal & Economics for business: demand, supply, market structures and pricing
Construct a monthly cash budget for a trading company from given collection and payment patterns and identify the month of peak funding need
Evaluate at least five techniques for managing receivables and payables and rank them by impact on liquidity
Derive equilibrium price and quantity from linear demand and supply functions and calculate elasticity at a stated price
Explain how elasticity of demand informs a pricing decision in a competitive versus a monopoly-like market
Your checkpoint
A completed 12-month cash budget with a written diagnosis of the funding gap and three concrete corrective actions
Economics for business: demand, supply, market structures and pricing & Business finance: sources of finance and capital structure
Compare perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly on price-setting power, output and long-run profit, using one named industry example each
Explain price discrimination, peak-load pricing and cost-plus pricing and judge when each is defensible
List and contrast at least eight sources of finance by cost, control dilution, maturity and suitability for a given firm stage
Compute a weighted average cost of capital from given component costs and interpret what a change in gearing does to it
Your checkpoint
A comparison matrix of market structures and financing sources with a 400-word applied case answering which finance source suits a growing manufacturer and why
Business finance: sources of finance and capital structure & Financial markets, institutions and the financial system
Distinguish debt versus equity trade-offs and explain the tax shield, financial distress costs and the practical limits of gearing
Describe the roles of central banks, commercial banks, investment banks and stock exchanges in channelling funds
Explain how monetary policy tools transmit to business borrowing costs and investment decisions
Summarise the main regulatory objectives behind securities market supervision and insider-trading prohibitions
Your checkpoint
A timed 45-minute written answer set (two questions) on capital structure and the financial system, self-scored with a list of gaps to revisit
Milestones
Week 4: Score at least 65% on the timed answer set and be able to state the cash conversion cycle formula and WACC formula from memory without notes