Put Your Profits on the Front Burner with The CSCA's Financial Accounting for Food Professionals Class
Culinary school graduates often enter the industry inspired to start restaurants, catering companies, and food businesses with well-honed knife skills and a repertoire of recipes. However, an understanding of balance sheets, cash flow statements, and general accounting offers many advantages in an economic climate with high food costs, restaurant closures, and wary investors. Beginning on July 14, chef and accounting instructor Julia Shanks leads the 4-week seminar "Financial Accounting for Food Professionals" at The CSCA.
Shanks, who holds an MBA from Babson College's F.W. Olin College of Business, will introduce three basic financial documents—income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement—and discuss the fundamental structure that connects these three statements. Shanks will also discuss financing a business and creating financial projections for potential investors and lenders.
Lessons will be based on analysis of actual financial statements from food businesses, allowing participants to evaluate real-life successes and failures in operations and profits.
Just as a chef needs to understand the fundamentals of savory cooking and baking, a culinary business owner needs to be able to perform the kind of analysis for simple solving-for-x algebraic problems or a crossword puzzle. As knife skills need practice and precision, financial accounting needs the equivalent to achieve fluency in the language of business.
Julia Shanks studied at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. After working for five years in top restaurants around the country, she started her first business, Interactive Cuisine, in 1997. In 2006, she brought her business to Sebastians, a Fidelity subsidiary, and renamed it Sebastians Interactive Kitchen. Julia currently consults with food businesses, helping them optimize operations and maximize profits. She is also an adjunct professor of accounting at Babson College.
The course meets over four consecutive weeks beginning on September 16th or 17th, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm at The CSCA. Class topics include the following. Week 1, Overview of Financial Accounting, which covers a review of an income statement, balance sheet, and a statement of cash flows; accounting categories; balance sheet equations; and a case study. Week 2, Transactional Analysis, compares revenues and expenses (unearned revenue and accounts payable), cash flow versus net income, accrual accounting versus cash accounting, and a case study. Week 3, Assets, discusses inventory management; food and beverage costs; fixed assets; depreciation and expenses; and a case study. The final class covers the topic Financing Your Business. Topics include equity versus debt, projecting future performance, a financial statement analysis, and a case study.
To register, visit the Recreational Class Calendar.
Financial Accounting for Food Professionals
Taught by Julia Shanks
Wednesdays, September 16, 23, 30; October 7, 2009
6:00pm-9:00pm
Thursdays, September 17, 24; October 1, 8, 2009
10:00am-1:00pm
The CSCA, 2020 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
$500.00
Reservations Required: CSCA Recreational Program
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