Financial Modeling with Excel and Google Sheets

Every model you've built has been tangled. Hardcoded numbers you can't find. Formulas broken by a copy. Files handed to your boss that take two hours to explain. Or you've looked inside someone else's model and found no clean inputs, no clear logic, no way to change an assumption and trust the whole thing updates right. This course teaches you to build the opposite: a financial model that is transparent, auditable, and genuinely trustworthy — not because you're perfect, but because the model is *built* to be checked. You'll learn the real machinery: the inputs/calculations/outputs architecture that makes every professional model auditable, the formulas and references that stay clean, the color conventions that make logic readable at a glance. You'll build the schedules that matter — depreciation, debt, working capital, the three-statement linkages that turn separate forecasts into one integrated model that actually balances. You'll stress it with scenarios and sensitivity analysis, value the business with a discounted-cash-flow analysis, and audit it for the errors spreadsheets are notorious for. Running through all of it is one discipline: every output is only as good as the assumptions and structure behind it. A model that runs without errors is not therefore correct. Precision is not accuracy. The believable range from a sensitivity table tells the truth a single point estimate hides. You finish with the real capability: given a business and assumptions, you can build an auditable three-statement model, integrate it, stress it, value it, and present it — all while knowing what you actually know and what you're guessing at. For aspiring financial analysts, founders, operators, consultants, and finance professionals who want to build models that work. THE COURSE TEACHES (concepts, for context): What a Financial Model Is (and What It's For), The Three Statements a Model Forecasts (Just Enough Accounting), Excel and Google Sheets as Modeling Environments, Cell References: Relative, Absolute, and Mixed, Model Architecture: Inputs, Calculations, Outputs, Modeling Standards and Formatting Conventions, Structuring Assumptions and Driving the Model, Building the Model Timeline, The Core Formula Toolkit, Lookup Functions: Pulling the Right Number, Conditional Aggregation: SUMIFS and Friends, The Corkscrew: Roll-Forward Schedules (BASE), Flags and Switches: Controlling the Model, Error Handling and Building In Checks, Forecasting Revenue from Drivers, Forecasting Costs and Operating Expenses, Building the Income Statement, The Depreciation and CapEx Schedule, The Debt and Interest Schedule, How the Three Statements Link, The Working-Capital Schedule, Building the Cash Flow Statement, Building the Balance Sheet (and Making It Balance), Circular References and Iterative Calculation, Auditing a Model for Errors, Scenario Analysis: Base, Upside, Downside, Sensitivity Analysis: Data Tables and Goal Seek, Time Value of Money and Discounting, Return Metrics: IRR, XIRR, and MIRR, The DCF: Building Free Cash Flow, The Discount Rate: WACC, Terminal Value and the Enterprise-to-Equity Bridge, Outputs, Charts, and Dashboards, Documentation, Versioning, and Handover, Stress-Testing and the Downside, Common Modeling Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, Putting Models to Work: Budgets, Deals, and Decisions, Model Risk, Honesty, and Ethics, Putting It Together: The End-to-End Build