American Music Therapy Association

Learn basic financial strategies in business and program management.  From choosing a bank account to determining a budget, learn the lingo and how to read financial statements.  Dive deep into managing the finances and having a financial plan, which is crucial to business success.  Bring your own financial documents and learn from real life experiences! 

Presenter(s): Jennifer Pinson, MT-BC; Rachelle Morgan, MA, MT-BC

3 CMTE-credit course

Learning Objectives

Learning Objective #1: Participants will identify 3 ways to build a strong financial foundation for their businesses. (CBMT Domain V.B.13, V.B.19)
Learning Objective #2: Participants will demonstrate how to generate and read basic financial statements for their businesses. (CBMT Domain V.B.13)
Learning Objective #3:  Participants will describe how to create and use a budget to set sustainable service rates. (CBMT Domain V.B.19)

Schedule

• 12:00-12:15:  Introduction and meeting everyone in the room.
• 12:15-12:45:  Starting Strong:  Basic business structure and how they relate to basic income and finances.  Discussion about Sole proprietor, LLC, and Corporation entities, and starting bank accounts, obtaining EINs, bookkeeping, and more. 
• 12:45-1:30:  Understanding terminology and setting your rates.  Knowing what an expense is and how to track income, will help you be profitable in the future.  During this section, we will also talk about how to budget and use the numbers to make decisions in your business.
• 1:30-1:50: Break
• 1:50-2:30:  Profit Loss.  How to read a P&L and answer questions about your business.  This document should be a document a business owner checks regularly and you will want to know how to pull the report and read it. Without understanding this document, it can be challenging to know the history of your business and where to go moving forward. 
• 2:30-2:50:  Other financial documents and why they are important.  Go over the balance sheet and owner equity, as well as Cash Flow documents.