A blank sheet, a set of assumptions, and one integrated model built across the whole course. Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow, linked, balancing, with a debt schedule and real interest circularity.
Blue for inputs, black for formulas, one switched column every driver is read out of, and a period row that re-dates the model from a single cell.
Volume times price rather than a growth rate, a cost that follows revenue, a cost that follows itself, and the two subtotals the rest of the model hangs off.
The cash a growing business ties up before it ever sees it: the cycle history ran at, the balances that cycle implies, and the cash flow line whose sign is the whole answer.
The roll-forward every balance-sheet schedule is shaped like, a depreciation grid that knows an asset cannot wear out before it is bought, and the first line this model sends back up into a statement.
The cash a business actually has left after everything it must pay, the clause that takes most of it, and the facility that covers the year it comes up short.
Interest is charged on a balance that interest itself changes. What the sheet does about that, and the one cell that gets you out when it goes wrong.
The statement that contains no new information, the one line on the balance sheet that is not a copy, and a model that balances without anything being plugged.
The two claims a model can make about itself, and the method that turns a red check row into one wrong cell in about five minutes.