"Business from Scratch: Financial Management" - This course, part of the Small and Medium-sized Business School, is designed for women from the Bila Tserkva community who have lost a family member due to the war. In response to their request and with the support of the Bila Tserkva City Council, the team from the Agency for Strategic Development of Bila Tserkva, in collaboration with Ukrainian Future, the business incubator of the Small Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, has developed a program that provides practical tools for managing financial resources at the household level in the context of creating and launching their own businesses.

The specialized course aimed to help participants:

• Define their financial goals and mechanisms to achieve them.
• Acquire practical skills in capital placement and multiplication.
• Verify the concept of creating and launching a business (organizational-legal form, tax system, understanding of regulatory business laws).
• Understand financial and tax reporting.
• Gain basic budgeting skills.
• Master practical tools for evaluating business efficiency and making management decisions.
• Prepare business founders (including business concept) for participation in financial and non-financial support programs.

Get acquainted with existing businesses in the city and learn from their experience to establish potential cooperation.
A total of 24 participants registered for the specialized course "Business from Scratch: Financial Management." From August 12 to September 30, the women attended a series of workshops and training sessions conducted by experts from the Agency for Strategic Development of Bila Tserkva and the business incubator Ukrainian Future. This included topics such as:

• Business opportunities in the Bila Tserkva community, Emotional Intelligence, and the New Style of Women's Leadership. Design thinking as a tool for generating ideas and justifying the concept of future businesses.
• Financial management, financial and legal justification of capital placement methods, defining financial goals, financial dilemmas of capital allocation, active and passive income, conditions for starting a business based on the chosen business concept.
• Cash flow planning and management. Organizing management accounting in micro, small, and medium-sized businesses.
• Financial results of the business, understanding the basics of financial reporting, defining and measuring key business efficiency indicators, avoiding cash gaps.
• Opportunities and active sources of SME financing. Direct and indirect financing. The "5-7-9%" program. Preparing a request for external financing: grant application, compiling the main sections of a business plan.

The concluding stage of the Small and Medium-sized Business School involved the preparation and presentation of business projects by the female participants. These projects covered various business ideas, including opening a bookstore-café, a rehabilitation center, a cosmetic salon, a confectionery, a preschool development center, a private school, a speech therapy center, a clothing showroom, a daycare center, and expanding their own retail food network, among others.