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Finance Fundamentals: Project Evaluation with NPV (Udemy.com)

An Introduction to Finance, Cash Flows, and Project Evaluation

Created by: Minh Pham

Last updated March 2018

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What you will learn

  • Learn how to Build a Simple Financial Model in Excel
  • Be able to calculate the Net Present Value (NPV) for a Project and apply the NPV decision criterion to accept or reject the project on a financial basis.
  • Develop a Pro-Forma Income Statement from a set of Project Assumptions
  • Carry out Scenario Analysis on their model using Microsoft Excel's Data Tables and Goal Seek Function
  • Carry out Scenario Analysis with Excel's Data Tables and Goal Seek function
  • Calculate Free Cash Flow of a Project from Scratch
  • Understand the Time Value of Value
  • Understand the role and purpose of Net Present Value
  • Apply Mid-Year Discounting
  • Calculate the Terminal Value or Continuing Value for a Project
  • We will be doing plenty of hand calculations to illustrate the mechanics of the formula, before diving into Excel Spreadsheet to tackle the more in depth exercises.

How it compares

Against the other 1,210 rated Udemy courses in Business on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.7 out of 5higher than 90% of them
  • Reviews161#993 of 1,211 by number of reviews
  • Length3.1 hourslonger than 52% of them
  • Last updatedMarch 2018earlier than 94% of them

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Course Description

This is an introductory course designed for people who would like to gain a better understanding of how financial theory is used in project and business evaluation.  

By the end of this course, you will be able to take your project/business ideas, and translate them into a simple financial model which will help you decide if the project is financially sound. 

If you come from a non-finance background, but would like to learn finance fundamentals, as well as understand what is required to build a simple financial model in Microsoft Excel, then this is the course for you.  I give you all the excel templates and exercise questions so that you can follow along.  After all, learning by doing is the best approach to make the information stick!  

The focus of this "Finance Fundamentals" course will be Project Evaluation with Net Present Value. You do not need to have any prior knowledge, and I have tried my best to structure the course so that the material builds logically on each other.  We will start by looking at the time value of money concept, before moving onto simple present value type calculations.  After this, we will look more closely at Net Present Value as a capital budgeting decision tool.  I will then walk you through how to develop a simple pro-forma income statement so that you can estimate the Free Cash Flows for your own project. 

Throughout the course, I use a combination of slides, calculation type questions, and excel exercises to help cement your understanding of the subject matter.  All templates are provided so that you can follow along, and get the most out of the material. 

Course outline:

  • Time Value of Money
  • Present Value and Discounted Cash Flow Analysis
  • Net Present Value
  • Calculating Free Cash Flows
  • Depreciation
  • Pro-Forma Income Statements
  • Calculating Terminal Value / Continuing Value
  • Discounting Adjustments
  • Looking at Risk
  • Brief overview of Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Payback Periods


I will be trying my best to continual improving the course as time goes on, by adding more exercises and solution videos to the course.

Feel free to message me any questions you may have about the course.  I will try my best to answer them as promptly as I can.  I hope to see you inside :)  

Thanks Everyone 

Minh

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Instructor Details

Minh Pham

I hold a Bachelor Degree in Engineering, and a Masters in Commerce from the University of Queensland, Australia. Since graduating (the first time), I have worked in multiple industries, including the mining sector as a reliability and project engineer, and the building sector as a HVAC and sustainability engineer.

I carried out my first professional "teaching gig" while working on a remote mine site, where I put together a training program for the tradesmen which covered the maintenance & troubleshooting of high-pressure conveyor brake systems.  It is as exciting as it sounds, but at the time it was critical, and also necessary to help our team avoid hydraulic injection injury; real nasty to endure and treat... I'll spare you the details.

After 3 years in the field, I went back to University to get my Masters in Commerce, as I had this deep desire to try and understand both the business and finance world.  

- Studying Engineering helped me understand the physical and material world.

- Studying Business helped me understand the human world, and helped me rationalized a lot of the seemingly "illogical" things big businesses tend to do. 

While at the University of Queensland, I was lucky enough to hold teaching positions at various different levels, and have taught in the following areas:

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Reviews

4.7

161 ratings on Udemy

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By Gajasree .S on 3/22/2025

great but can be much more precise on each topic and would have provided some more examples

By Colton Corey on 11/22/2023

Great lesson plan. Enjoyed this journey. Highly recommend for anyone trying to master this concept. Thanks

By Caitlin Connolly on 1/17/2023

This was my first Udemy course and to be honest I didn't have high hopes, but this course blew me out of the water. It gave practical hands on examples, and every time I found myself asking a question in my head the instructor would somehow anticipate it and give a straight forward answer. He didn't just focus on the equations, but on what they meant and how you may (or may not) use them in the real world. Can't recommend enough for anyone trying to get some basic business financial understanding!

By Arvind Ranjan Das on 8/10/2020

This course helped me to understand the Fundamentals of Finance which enhance my knowledge and also makes me understand to PV,NPV. This course also helped me to understand about the Free Cash Flow.

By Lisa Poelen on 3/17/2020

When questions were asked regarded the course content there is no reply, i have questions regarding tax in case of no net losses.

By Jorge Gutierrez on 5/21/2018

The course was good. The instructor's communication was excellent as well. I would suggest taking a company's 10-K report and using it to build the pro-forma. The reason is Noplat is used assuming no debt. It would be beneficial to work an FCF with a company having high indebtedness and showing the students how to extract the interest payment and determine the Noplat. I would also include some additional exercises in identifying the opportunity cost of capital. How do you pin down risk? Lastly, I would seal it by showing an example of how to evaluate (NPV) or PV of a company given it's 5 or 10 year proforma.

By Hui Fan on 3/3/2018

I found this course really helpful, easy to understand at the first few chapters, especially when I am a newbie in the industry, I was afraid that it would be too easy (basic accounting stuff), or too deep in the finance world that I wouldn't understand. But turns out you payed attention to details and really explained the contents clearly. For example, Time value of money. When it comes to investing, its hard to make a decision. But once you know how to logistically analyses when, how, how much etc, then learn some basic concepts like opportunity cost, present value or future value, it is just so much easier to choose wisely whether to invest or not. So the example given above is just one of the useful content I find useful in the first 5 lectures. After learning all, I think all the lectures are interrelated and can be used in analyzing different contexts applying different concepts. Also if you want to talk like a professional using ‘finance words’, I reckon you will find this course very useful! Hope I can see more online classes of yours in the future and thank you for the informative and practical classes!

By Siyuan Chen on 3/1/2018

This course outlines the concept of NPV in a way that is easy for learners with both financial and non-financial backgrounds to get started. It provides problems with detailed problem solving strategies to show the learners how to apply learnt knowledge in real life scenarios. It is highly recommended to take this course because it will give you a clear understanding of cash flow which would help you manage money and provide valuable financing advice throughout your life. :)

By Chloe on 2/27/2018

This course definitely gives me a better understanding of how to manage the money I have atm. An energetic course!!! Definitely save it for future!

By Grace Li on 2/27/2018

As a individual from no finance background, this course is definitely the right choice for me. The introduction definitely caught my eyes. The way this Lecturer presented is really explicite and interesting.

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Overall Score : 94 / 100