It is difficult to see an immediate natural synergy between management accounting and pigs. One involves balance sheets, profit-and-loss statements and nicely-cut suits; the other goes oink and has been an unwitting player in a global panic about flu.

Yet underwriters, trainee managers and other staff at Allianz, the insurance company, are using novelty stuffed pigs to learn the serious business of corporate finance. The aim is to teach those without finance or accounting experience the basics of company accounts and cashflow management, helping them to get a better idea of how their own work and business decisions fit into Allianz's overall operations.

As to why they use fluffy porkers — alongside a small tractor, a plastic farm and a wad of fake money — well, it makes things more fun. And that means people learn better and remember more, Paul Dunn, managing director of P3, the training company that runs the programme, said. “If you think back to school, you will find that the subjects you enjoyed are the ones that you remember, while you emptied the others out of your head the moment you left the exam.”

The novelty value also helps the lessons stick in people's minds. “Playing with fluffy pigs is not natural for people at Allianz. They're really quite a sober organisation,” he said.

Pigs should help people to remember 30 per cent more than if they had spent the day looking at a PowerPoint presentation or dissecting spreadsheets. In fact, Mr Dunn said, people can learn the same basic concepts in a day that they would learn in a three-year management accounting degree.

The day begins with Allianz staff setting up a simple business — a pig farm — and creating their accounts as they go. Every time they buy or sell something, be it stock or farm equipment, they move it in or out of the play piggery and shuffle large laminated sheets, which gradually build into a giant balance statement that takes up several metres of floor space. If it wasn't for the age of the participants, the training course could look like a particularly creative primary school class.

The training course was unlike any other that Jenna Kim, an engineering graduate on a management trainee programme, had been on. “It was exactly the right balance of seriousness and a little bit of humour. And it was good to have something more tangible to help clarify the concepts,” she said.

Using a pretend pig farm was more effective at getting across basic points than setting up an insurance company.

“You needed something relatively basic. If you tried to make the business too complicated, you would be trying to understand it rather than the principles.” The use of physical money means that mistakes that lead to a cashflow crisis, for example, become immediately obvious.

For workers who spend the day glued to a computer, playing with toys is also a welcome break. Jason Howes, a sales manager, was particularly pleased that he didn't have to spend the day wrestling with Excel. “When you think about financial awareness [training], you assume it's going to be spreadsheets,” he said. “I had worried that it was going to be all about maths...When [the trainer] started the pig farm exercise, I was quite surprised.”

While Mr Howes still has more coursework to go — a considerable self-study component, as well as another training day — he is confident about facing the three-hour exam at the end of it all. “I feel a lot better about it now than I did previously. Getting my head around ratios and things was a lot easier [this way] than just seeing it in black and white.”

Sian Tarbuck, who runs Allianz's Underwriting Academy training centre, said that the overall response to pig-based learning had been very positive. “Finance can be a bit dry, but people felt that it had been brought to life,” she said.

If everything continues to go well, Allianz may begin to incorporate “fun” learning techniques into some other modules, although as yet there is no plan to go the whole hog.

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