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13 Steps to do Financial Analysis Credits to Anders Liu-Lindberg, follow him for more practical finance content. Here's the original post ----- Most financial analysis is pointless. Here's why... We start with the numbers Too often, we dump the numbers in a spreadsheet. We organize it in a pivot and compare it across periods. We investigate every variance and explain why it occurred. Instead, we should start with a business problem This is very inefficient and often a waste of time. Instead, we should identify our business challenges. Then we analyze the issue and propose viable solutions. It's not the analysis approach that's wrong I believe you're great at doing analysis. You follow a logically structured process. The problem is that you start at the wrong place. If we work on our true business challenges we will improve performance. Business challenge -> analysis process -> solution implementation Here are 13 steps for doing a great financial analysis: 1. Financial statements 2. Business understanding 3. Clean and organize data 4. Calculate ratios 5. Analyze trends 6. Benchmarking 7. Assess profitability 8. Evaluate liquidity 9. Cash flow analysis 10. Recommend actions 11. Write the report 12. Present analysis 13. Update regularly ----- Follow our page FP&A Secrets to grow your career in Financial Planning & Analysis

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Ambaye Hagos

Freelance Consultant

2mo

Useful tips, thank you

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