In order to make well informed credit decisions, one tool that credit and risk professionals in the equipment finance industry rely on is financial statement analysis. Now, a new online course is available from the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association to help industry professionals increase their proficiency in assessing risk and evaluating the creditworthiness of middle market companies through financial statement analysis.

The new ELFA Academy course, Financial Statement Analysis, covers the fundamentals credit professionals need to know, and goes beyond to teach future-focused skills—like projections and forecasting—that are necessary in today’s market environment. Developed in conjunction with Moody’s Analytics, it is the only course of its kind available specifically for the equipment finance industry—and will be of particular interest to credit analysts, underwriters, portfolio managers and credit officers.

“ELFA is proud to deliver superior education and training to the equipment leasing and finance community. Our new Financial Statement Analysis course—designed and developed by our member practitioners in partnership with Moody’s Analytics—puts self-paced training in the essentials of financial analysis and credit risk assessment at industry members’ fingertips,” said William G. Sutton, CAE, ELFA president and CEO.

Course Content

The Financial Statement Analysis online course includes seven modules:

1. Introduction to Financial Analysis and Business Types
2. Profitability Ratios
3. Activity Ratios
4. Capital Spending, Gearing and Debt Coverage
5. Cash Flow Analysis
6. Projections and Credit Risk Assessment
7. Loan Structure

A detailed course outline is available at www.elfaonline.org/events/elearning/courses/?fa=fsa.

The course takes approximately 6-8 hours to complete. It does not need to be completed in one sitting—after registering, users can log in and out of the course, and the course will save their progress.

To register, ELFA members and nonmember should go to www.elfaonline.org/events/elearning/login/, log in to the course catalog using their ELFA username and password and click on “Catalog Page.” Those who don’t have a password can click the Create Account link at the upper right of the site.

The cost of the course is $395 for ELFA members and $790 for nonmembers. Bulk pricing discounts are available. For more information, please contact Alexa Carnibella, ELFA Director of Professional Development, at [email protected].