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Financial Intelligence is a type of business intelligence constituted of the knowledge and skill gained from understanding finance and accounting principles in the business world and understanding how money is earned and being used.

Furthermore, financial intelligence is knowing what we want to make financial decisions such that we do not have financial problem. It is as simple as that.

Usually we have to spend money and the issue is that we either have a lot of it or too little. Individuals, families and businesses (big or small) face this issue day in day out. When you are faced with this problem, what do you do? How do you get to handle it? All you need is to be financially intelligent and you can face any financial issues that will ever come your way.

Can you interpret your personal financial statement, that of your family or your business?

Do you know what your income and expenses are? Income is money coming into your life while expenses are money going out of your pocket. Do you know it to be Naira or Dollar?

What is your cashflow? Cashflow is the difference between the income you make and the expenses for a given period. For you, is it positive or negative? Have you ever checked that?

What are your assets and what your liabilities? Assets is the balance of what you own that brings money into your pocket. Liabilities, on the other hand, represents money you owe others or anything that takes money away from your pocket.

It is important that you know all these because it gives you an understanding of your financial position and that of any transaction you want to be involved in. Every time you want to buy share or real estate or want to invest in or start a business, your need financial intelligence.

Being financially intelligent helps you to evaluate opportunities and investments properly. This helps you to be able to solve your financial issues to a large extent yourself as numbers are critical. If you don’t know where you are, how can you know how to get to where you are going? Financial Intelligence also helps to increase your confidence as you become more financially intelligent.

You increase your income, manager your expenses better, increase your assets and also leverage instead of increasing debts.

Although a fairly new term, financial intelligence has its roots in organizational development research, mostly in the field of employee participation.

Financial intelligence has emerged as a best practice and core competency in many organizations leading to improved financial results, increased employee morale, and reduced employee turnover.

Many organizations include financial intelligence programs in their leadership development curriculum. Financial intelligence is not an innate skill, rather it is a learned set of skills that can be developed at all levels.

Financial intelligence is very critical for us all to survive, especially in these times of recession. We hear it so many times but it seems many of us don’t know what it means. Our ignorance also prevents us from gaining the necessary knowledge that is required about it.

I’m sure you will agree with me now that financial intelligence is one of the most important skills you need to develop. Start now to develop your financial intelligence. Read books on financial intelligence. There quite a number of them available. You should also attend seminars and conferences on financial intelligence where you can interact with others.

Gabriel Agboola Adeniji ( MSc, ACA, FCA)

                                                                                                                           (Principal Consultant)