01 How To Master Financial Models

Nineteen financial models, each built end to end — and the nineteen live Excel workbooks to go with them.

Every forecast, valuation and financing decision runs on the same handful of models. This handbook teaches all nineteen in the Financial Models category — one chapter each, built the way a practitioner actually builds them, from the three-statement keystone out to DCF, IRR and the LBO.

What you get

The complete PDF handbook plus nineteen worked Excel models — the live version of every model built in the book. Blue input cells you change, black formula cells that respond, and a Read-me tab on each. Open the workbook beside the chapter and drive it yourself.

How every chapter is built

Read one and you can build any. Each model follows the same thirteen-section rhythm: the question it answers, what it is, who uses it, its anatomy, inputs and outputs, how to build it step by step, a worked example, strengths, limits and pitfalls, industry notes, how it connects to the other models, modern relevance, using AI on it, and a practitioner's checklist.

The nineteen models

Three-Statement Model, Revenue Build, Expense Forecast, Headcount, Working Capital, Capex & Depreciation, Debt Schedule, Tax Schedule, Sensitivity Table, Scenario Model, Cash Flow Forecast, Budget Model, Rolling Forecast, Long-Range Plan, NPV, IRR, DCF Build, Dividend Capacity and the Integrated LBO.

The learning path

The chapters are ordered as a single connected build, not an alphabetical list. Everything rests on the three-statement model — the keystone — and each later model plugs into what you built before.

Who it's for

Analysts, associates, founders, investors and operators who want to build financial models properly and know why each one works — without piecing it together from scattered tutorials.

How to use it

Work straight through to master the category, or jump to a single model when you need it for live work.

Book 01 of the Business Framework Library, part of The Investment Banking Practitioner’s Handbook Series. Master this category on its own, or reach for the Business Framework Compendium when you want the one-page reference to all 467 frameworks.

By John Colley — Cambridge University MA · MBA with Distinction, Bayes Business School · 30+ years in investment banking, M&A and private equity.