Liquidity and Working Capital Management Training Course

Course overview

Liquidity sits closer to survival than almost any other measure in corporate finance. A company can report healthy annual earnings and still miss payroll or a supplier payment if cash is trapped in unpaid invoices and slow-moving stock. This course treats liquidity and working capital as an operational discipline: the deliberate management of short-term assets and liabilities so that cash arrives when obligations fall due. It centers on the cash conversion cycle and the levers that shorten it, including days sales outstanding, days payable outstanding, and days inventory outstanding.

Across the sessions, participants examine how treasury teams forecast cash, monitor liquidity ratios, and match short-term financing to genuine funding gaps. The material connects the moving parts of the working-capital cycle, so a change in credit terms, an inventory policy, or a supplier payment schedule is understood in terms of its effect on available cash. Rather than treating each component in isolation, the course builds a single view of how receivables, payables, inventory, and financing interact under real market pressure.

Why this matters

Working capital is where strategy meets the bank balance. When credit tightens or demand swings, the firms that hold together are usually the ones that already understood their cash conversion cycle and had committed liquidity in reserve. Treasury functions are increasingly asked to defend liquidity as a governance responsibility, not merely a reporting task, and boards now expect early visibility of funding gaps well before they become a crisis.

That expectation ties short-term liquidity directly to the broader discipline of Financial Risk Assessment and Mitigation, because a liquidity shortfall rarely arrives alone. It tends to surface alongside credit, currency, and counterparty exposures that compound one another. Understanding how cash behaves under stress is what allows a treasury team to act while options are still open instead of accepting whatever terms the market offers in a squeeze.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Track liquidity separately from reported profit.
• Forecast cash weeks ahead and act before the gap arrives.
• Pool balances so one figure shows what is actually available.
• Collect earlier without turning away a viable customer.
• Stretch payables without losing a supplier's goodwill.
• Shorten the days between paying a supplier and being paid.
• Free cash held in stock without breaking a delivery promise.
• Fund a shortfall at a price the business can justify.
• Authorize releases of money under limits someone visibly owns.
• Consolidate treasury tasks that today sit in separate spreadsheets.

Course outline

Unit 1: Fundamentals of liquidity and working capital

• The gap between liquidity and solvency in a growing firm.
• Net working capital and the operating items that drive it.
• Current ratio, quick (acid-test) ratio, and cash ratio norms.
• Liquidity crises at firms whose earnings looked sound.

Unit 2: Cash-flow forecasting and liquidity management

• Direct and indirect methods and when each one fits.
• Stress-testing a thirteen-week view against late receipts.
• Notional and physical cash pooling across group accounts.
• Daily sight of balances across accounts and currencies.

Unit 3: Managing receivables and payables

• Credit policy and chasing that cut days sales outstanding.
• Supplier terms that extend days payable outstanding.
• Early-payment discounts and dynamic discounting at a price.
• Reading the conversion cycle as a number both levers move.

Unit 4: Inventory and working-capital optimization

• Inventory control methods and the service level they buy.
• Days inventory outstanding under just-in-time supply.
• Supply-chain finance and factoring to release locked cash.
• Turnover ratios that measure working-capital performance.

Unit 5: Short-term financing and treasury tools

• Short-term financing sized to the actual funding shortfall.
• Cost of commercial paper, revolving credit, and overdrafts.
• The relationship banks and money markets behind a facility.
• Matching the tenor of financing to the shape of the gap.

Unit 6: Liquidity risk, governance, and controls

• Limits and early-warning triggers with a named owner.
• Payment authorization and who may release funds.
• Treasury policy and the reporting line to the board.
• Weak controls that turned a cash squeeze into collapse.

Unit 7: Digital treasury and emerging practice

• Digital platforms for forecasting, payments, and reporting.
• Analytics that flag a late payer before the due date.
• Sustainability terms creeping into working-capital policy.
• Preparing a business to absorb a shock on committed funds.

How the course is delivered

Days move between structured teaching and applied practice, with each concept grounded in worked numerical examples before participants apply it themselves. Expert-led discussion sets out the reasoning behind each treasury choice, guided walkthroughs of documented cases show how real firms managed their working capital, and group exercises using sample data let participants calculate cash conversion cycles, build short forecasts, and test financing decisions. Step-by-step demonstrations of the core ratios and forecasts keep the numbers transparent throughout.

Who should attend

It serves professionals who own or influence the flow of cash through a business and want a firmer command of short-term liquidity. Typical participants include:

• Treasury officers and cash-management specialists.
• Finance managers and corporate controllers.
• CFOs and finance directors responsible for funding and liquidity.
• Credit, collections, and accounts-payable leads.
• Supply-chain and procurement managers whose decisions shape inventory and payables.
• Business owners and operational leaders accountable for cash performance.

About EuroQuest International Training

EuroQuest International Training supports finance and treasury teams from its Bratislava, Slovakia headquarters. Running since 2015, it has drawn over 15,000 participants to a library of more than 1,000 course titles, with sittings in Dubai, Vienna, London, Geneva, Istanbul, Barcelona and Paris led by practitioners from corporate treasury and banking.

Frequently asked questions

What do participants take away as evidence of completion?

Delegates take away a EuroQuest certificate of completion showing the course and the dates they attended. It serves as proof of attendance rather than an external qualification; the sessions are educational and are not financial or investment advice.

Is strong liquidity the same as being profitable?

No, and confusing the two is a common and costly mistake. Profit measures whether sales exceed costs over a period, while liquidity measures whether cash is actually on hand when a payment is due. A profitable company can still fail if its cash is locked in receivables and inventory, which is exactly why the working-capital cycle deserves its own attention.

Is this course useful for managers outside the finance function?

Yes. Working capital is shaped far more by operations and sales than many teams realize, since decisions on stock levels, customer credit, and supplier terms all move cash directly. Managers in those areas gain a clearer sense of how their choices affect the organization's liquidity.

Related courses

• Strategic Cost Management and Control
• Managing Cross-Border Financial Transactions
• Credit Analysis and Lending Strategies
• Corporate Finance and Capital Budgeting

Register for this course

Email info@euroqst.com or phone +421 911 803 183 to join an upcoming cohort; we will help you lock in dates and answer any questions on content.