Start with a repair shop.
Finish at the investment committee.
Six stages, four units each. Every unit has three lessons, one experiment and one assessment. Follow the order or jump to what you need.
The loop and the three lenses
Meet the money loop and the three statements that watch it. The reflex it builds: stock or flow. which clock.
The language of a business
Money, value, profit and cash are four different things. Learn to keep them apart.
Every transaction has two sides
Build a balance sheet by hand and learn why a debit is only a direction.
Cash runs on a different clock
A sale can be earned in March and paid for in April. Both dates matter, for different reasons.
One business, three statements
Trace one purchase through the Scorecard, the Snapshot and the Cash Ledger.
Selling and spending
When a sale counts, what it cost, and how a machine becomes an expense. The reflex it builds: which clock, applied to revenue, cost and assets.
When does a sale become revenue?
Contracts, subscriptions, refunds, and the difference between selling something and arranging a sale.
The cost of making a sale
Follow goods from the stockroom into cost of sales, and see why the order you count them in changes profit.
Pay now, use for years
Capex, depreciation and impairment: how a machine bought today becomes an expense over a decade.
The assets you cannot touch
Patents, brands, customer lists, and the leftover called goodwill.
Funding and cash
Lenders, owners, and the cash hiding inside the profit. The reflex it builds: whose claim. the bridge from profit to cash.
Borrowed money has a price
Interest, principal, bonds, leases, and the difference between being profitable and being able to pay.
Who owns the earnings?
Shares, dilution, buybacks, and what earnings per share does and does not tell you.
Find the cash inside the profit
Reconcile accrual earnings to cash, and see how growth can quietly eat it.
EBIT, EBITDA and what gets left out
Build the earnings bridge, then test the case for every add-back.
The rulebooks and the record
Book versus tax, the filings, and how to compare like with like. The reflex it builds: what is the evidence.
One business, two rulebooks
Why book profit and taxable profit differ, and why neither one is the cash tax paid.
Taxes across time
Deferred tax assets and liabilities, explained as timing rather than mystery.
Read a public company
Find your way around a 10-K: the notes, the auditor's report and management's story.
Compare like with like
Line up periods, units, definitions and frameworks before you compare two numbers.
Diagnosis and value
Ratios, unit economics, forecasts and what a business is worth. The reflex it builds: all five questions, turned into judgment.
From numbers to diagnosis
Margins, turnover, leverage and return on capital, and the hurdle they must clear.
What makes growth profitable?
Contribution, break-even, operating leverage, and what a customer is really worth.
Build a business forecast
Turn drivers into linked statements, then find the cash need before it finds you.
Value is a claim on the future
Present value, enterprise value, multiples, and why the terminal year matters most.
Deals and verdicts
Combine businesses, take them apart, and defend a verdict. The reflex it builds: all five questions, defended in writing.
When businesses combine
Control, consolidation, purchase accounting, and why EPS accretion is not value.
Take a business apart
Draw the perimeter, sort allocated costs from avoidable ones, and build a standalone view.
Ask whether the earnings hold up
Adjustments, cash conversion, red flags, and a diligence memo that survives review.
The analyst's desk
Tear down a complete fictional business and defend your verdict to an investment committee.