CS Advanced Level
Finance for Decision Making glossary
Every term this guide defines, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it. Open it when a word in a question is unfamiliar, and test yourself on it in the last week: cover the definition and say it in one sentence.
7 terms from the free first chapter
M
- Managerial functions
The core strategic decisions: financing, investment or capital budgeting, and dividends, each with a chapter of its own.
Taught in Overview of finance
N
- Non-financial objectives
Employee welfare, customer satisfaction, environmental and social responsibility (Corporate Governance and Ethics, under the ESG framework), and other stakeholder-facing goals.
Taught in Overview of finance
O
- Other emerging functions
Newer responsibilities such as sustainable/ESG finance, fintech adoption, and enterprise-wide risk management, increasingly part of the finance function's remit.
Taught in Overview of finance
- Overlaps and conflicts
Financial and non-financial objectives often reinforce each other over the long term, but can conflict in the short term, for instance where responsible investment reduces near-term profit.
Taught in Overview of finance
P
- Profit maximisation
A financial objective focused on maximising accounting profit, criticised for ignoring risk, timing, and cash flow.
Taught in Overview of finance
R
- Routine functions
Day-to-day activities: cash handling, record keeping, credit control, supervising working capital, covered in its own chapter.
Taught in Overview of finance
W
- Wealth (shareholder value) maximisation
The generally preferred financial objective: maximising the market value of shareholders' investment, which accounts for risk and the timing of returns (the chapter on the time value of money) that profit alone ignores.
Taught in Overview of finance
The full glossary adds every term from the other 11 chapters, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it.