The Profit & Loss. The Balance Sheet. The Cash Flow statement. Most entrepreneurs don't truly understand them. Those who do make better decisions, raise capital on better terms, and build businesses worth more.
Seven parts. Beginner to expert. Every lesson builds on the last. Every quiz checks your understanding before you advance.
Practical, no-nonsense writing that respects your intelligence and your time. No jargon without explanation. No theory without application. Every concept tied to real business decisions.
Each lesson is designed as a self-contained learning unit with a video placeholder, lesson reading, callout boxes, and visual examples — ready to receive video content.
60+ questions across 20 chapter quizzes. Every wrong answer comes with a clear explanation of why it's wrong and what the right answer means. Learning happens at the point of error.
Enter your own numbers. COGS calculator. Working capital analyzer. FCF quality calculator. Return metrics calculator. DuPont decomposer. Valuation tool. Credit capacity model. Your business, calculated live.
The crown jewel of Part V. Enter your assumptions — revenue growth, margins, working capital days, CapEx — and watch all three financial statements update simultaneously and automatically balance.
A single business — Meridian Roasters — is woven through all seven parts. From first journal entry to M&A acquisition analysis. You watch one business grow through every financial lens.
Meet Sarah and Meridian Roasters — a specialty coffee wholesale business that starts with a $40,000 investment and first journal entry, and grows over seven parts into an acquisition target valued at $850,000.
Every concept in this course is illustrated with Meridian's real numbers. You don't just learn theory — you watch how each financial principle plays out in a real, growing business across two years of operation.
Before numbers, there is context. Why financial statements exist, who reads them, the accounting equation, double-entry bookkeeping, and your first journal entry.
Revenue recognition, COGS, gross margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, EPS, multi-year trends, margin analysis, revenue quality, and earnings manipulation detection.
Assets, liabilities, equity. Liquidity spectrum, PP&E, goodwill, deferred taxes, ASC 842 leases, working capital, Cash Conversion Cycle, liquidity ratios, leverage, ROA/ROE/ROIC, and DuPont analysis.
Why profitable companies go bankrupt. The three sections. Indirect method. Working capital movements. D&A add-backs. FCF vs. FCFE vs. FCFF. CapEx intensity. Asset-light models. Cash flow manipulation. DCF groundwork.
How all three statements form one system. Tracing every transaction across all three. Building a live 3-statement financial model. Horizontal analysis. Common-size statements. Cross-company benchmarking. Structural vs. cyclical changes.
Reading 10-K annual reports. MD&A analysis. Footnotes and auditor opinions. Equity valuation multiples. Quality of Earnings due diligence. Credit analysis and loan structuring. Normalising financials for M&A. Synergy modelling. Purchase Price Allocation.
Earnings quality forensics. The Beneish M-Score. Industry-specific financial statements (banks, SaaS, real estate). The analyst's complete playbook. Building your own analysis framework. Thinking like a financial detective.
Financial statements are not accounting documents. They are the biography of a business — and every business owner deserves to read their own story.
Enter your materials, direct labor, and packaging costs. Get instant gross profit and margin calculation — colour-coded against industry benchmarks.
Enter your AR, inventory, AP, revenue, and COGS. Instantly compute DSO, DIO, DPO, Net Working Capital, and Cash Conversion Cycle with intelligent interpretation.
ROA, ROE, ROCE, ROIC — computed live from your inputs. DuPont decomposition shows which driver (margin, turnover, or leverage) is generating your returns.
Enter net income, D&A, working capital changes, CapEx, and SBC. Get Operating CF, FCF, conservative FCF ex-SBC, and an earnings quality rating with interpretation.
The course's centrepiece. Change one assumption — watch all three statements update simultaneously. Includes automatic balance check. Built for Meridian Roasters. Adaptable to any business.
Three-method valuation: P/E, EV/EBITDA, and P/FCF — calculated simultaneously. Gives an implied equity value range with commentary on multiple spread and reliability.
Enter EBITDA, EBIT, existing debt service, and proposed new loan. Get pro forma DSCR, interest coverage, leverage ratio, and a lender's likely verdict — Approvable / Conditional / Challenged.
Enter any P&L in dollars. Get every line as a percentage of revenue with animated bar charts. Instantly comparable to any competitor or industry benchmark — regardless of size.
Part I is free. No registration required. Start with why financial statements matter and build from there.