A three-statement model you can actually push around.
Income statement, balance sheet and cash flow for a DSE-listed manufacturer, properly linked, so a change to one assumption moves all three. Drag any driver and watch the statements, the charts and the credit metrics move with it. The balance check at the top is computed, not asserted: if the model were wrong, it would say so.
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Income statement
Balance sheet
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Cash flow statement
The last reported year has no cash flow column: the model starts from that year's balance sheet, and a flow needs two balance sheets to exist between.
The links are the model
Net income lands in retained earnings and at the top of the cash flow. Capex builds PP&E and comes back as next year's depreciation. Working capital days set receivables, inventory and payables, and the change in them is a cash item. Cash is the balance sheet's plug, straight off the bottom of the cash flow.
A balance check that can fail
Assets minus liabilities and equity is computed for every year and shown. Because each roll-forward carries the prior year's difference rather than creating one, a balanced opening balance sheet guarantees balanced forecast years, so a non-zero check means a real error, not a rounding artefact. Nudge an opening balance and watch it go red.
No circular references
Interest is charged on opening debt rather than on a closing or average balance. Charging it on the closing balance would make interest depend on cash and cash depend on interest, the circular reference that makes a spreadsheet need iterative calculation and makes an error impossible to trace. The convention is stated rather than hidden.
A revolver, so the plan is fundable
A forecast that runs cash negative isn't a forecast. When the closing balance would fall below the minimum, a revolving facility draws the difference; when there's surplus, it sweeps back. Its interest is charged through the income statement, so stress shows up in profit as well as in the balance sheet.
Assumptions in one place
Every driver is a named input with a range, a unit and a plain sentence about what it does. Nothing is hardcoded inside a formula, which is what makes a model auditable by someone who didn't write it, and editable by the client afterwards.
Tested, not just eyeballed
The engine is separate from the page and checked on its own: three thousand randomised assumption sets, plus deliberate stress, a loss-making plan, debt repaid faster than it exists, working capital stretched to breaking point. All of them still balance.
Need this for a real company?
Three-statement models, DCFs and operating models in Excel: built so you can edit them after I hand them over, with the assumptions in one place and the checks visible.