Building a robust and flexible financial model
Building a robust and flexible financial model is a critical task for businesses. Whether you’re trying to secure funding for your startup, track your company finances, or plan for your company’s future, having a solid model is essential.
5 Perspectives over 5 years at Gridlines
Paul Myers I’ve been working with Gridlines for just over two years. It has flown by. Let me tell you why. Gridlines is a small-but-growing business. We had a little fewer than 20 people when I got involved in late 2020; two years later about twice that many faces are on the weekly zoom calls. […]
What is a Merger Model?
A merger model represents the financial position arising on the combination of two companies. Companies can combine in a number of ways including a merger under a mutual agreement to form a consolidated entity or an acquisition. An M&A model is an advanced model used to evaluate the pro forma accretion/dilution of earnings per share […]
Killer Errors – Adding when you mean to subtract!
It still surprises me when we are completing a financial model audit, how often we encounter errors where rather than adding a number it is subtracted by mistake (or vice versa). Where you get a sign wrong, it’s especially bad news as it gives you twice the problem compared to missing it out completely. If […]
Killer Errors – Base Dates
Another group of killer errors that can cause big problems are base dates for indexation, discounting, and NPV calculations. This is one close to my heart as many years ago, believe it or not, I had included an incorrect base date in an NPV calc! Thankfully it came to light before the bid went in, […]
Killer Errors – Indexation
To help in our mission to save our friends and colleagues from the horrors of modelling errors, we plan to share a series of the most common errors we uncover in our role as model auditors. We hope this helps you dodge a bullet sometime soon. No 1. Indexation Some of the biggest errors we […]
An Update on the UK Mini-budget
The new UK Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, delivered a fiscal statement on October 17th 2022, in a bid to reassure the markets and bring a degree of financial stability after Kwasi Kwarteng, the then Chancellor’s Mini-budget of September 23rd 2022 caused a period of economic turmoil for the UK. The Medium-Term Fiscal Plan is still scheduled […]
Openbox | A matter of perspective
When we started building Openbox, we thought we were building a tool to create spreadsheet models. But as anyone who has started a business will tell you, customers and the market have a way of surprising you with what they really want! And one thing they want is help understanding what their model is doing. […]
The UK Mini-budget
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, delivered his Mini-budget on 23 September 2022. The full suite of documents can be found here. The proposed tax measures of particular interest to companies involved in the project finance arena are discussed below. Corporation tax rate rise scrapped ‘The planned increase of the main corporation tax rate […]
What is a model audit?
What is a Model Audit? In simple terms, a model audit is a review of a financial model, generally completed by an independent third party to help minimise the risk of error. Model audits are typically (but not exclusively) undertaken in relation to financial models which have been developed to support large transactions, where a […]
