APERTUREANALYTICS02 of 05 · MBAQuantify the Business
Turn financial and operational data into decision-ready intelligence.
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“Why is it happening?”
A full financial statement analysis, then the decision it supports. The statements are read on their own terms and restated as common-size and trend, return is decomposed into margin and asset productivity, and the ratio families are calculated on one consistent basis across every period. Then the analysis goes behind the face of the accounts: what the notes disclose, what the cash conversion cycle costs in real money, and whether the reported profit is supported by cash. It closes by sizing the levers, so you know what one point of gross margin is worth before you go after it.
Most owners have plenty of numbers. What they don’t have is anyone who turns them into a decision. That’s the job.
What you get
A tangible deliverable, yours to keep.
Deliverable
The Profit Map™ + scenario model
Published in full
Three companies. One method. Completely different questions.
Two complete analyses, published with nothing held back: a listed retailer with forty billion in revenue and an audited 10-K, and an owner-managed fabricator with eighteen million and a set of reviewed accounts. Read side by side they make a point that is hard to make in the abstract: the analysis has to change when the entity does, and most financial analysis quietly refuses to.
It is not public versus private that breaks a comparison
It is tax status. A pass-through pays no entity-level tax, so its net margin sits structurally higher than an identical C corporation’s. Compare on operating margin and EBITDA, or not at all. Nothing in either set of statements warns you the comparison has already failed.
What reported earnings actually represent
In an owner-managed business the owner sets their own pay and rents the building to themselves. Reported earnings reflect a personal tax decision as much as the cost of running the business, so the analysis normalises them, with an evidence grade on every add-back.
How value gets established
Observed for a listed company: market capitalization and multiples read off the market. Constructed for a private one: normalized earnings times an evidenced multiple range, less net debt, and the range is the answer, not the midpoint.
Under the hood
The frameworks behind Analytics.
The same techniques big-company teams use, applied, in plain language, to your business.
Common-size analysis
Restates every line as a share of revenue or of total assets, so the shape of the business shows up rather than its size, and any year is comparable to any other.
Horizontal (trend) analysis
Tracks every line across the periods. Common-size shows what the business is; this shows what it is doing.
DuPont return decomposition
Splits return into profit margin and asset productivity. A margin problem and a productivity problem look identical in one number and need opposite responses.
Ratio analysis, six families
Profitability, returns, liquidity, efficiency, coverage and cash flow, calculated the same way every period so the comparison is real.
Cash conversion cycle
Days to collect, days of inventory and days to pay, then converted into the cash each one released or consumed at your own daily rate of trade.
Earnings quality
Separates profit that is supported by cash from profit that is not, and normalizes owner pay, related-party rent and one-off items with an evidence grade on every add-back.
Credit and solvency
Leverage measured with operating leases counted as the debt they are, plus interest coverage and a distress score. Leaving leases out is the most common way to understate how borrowed a business is.
The notes
Receivables quality, inventory basis, deferred revenue and the age of the asset base. Where the face of the statements stops and the disclosure starts.
Break-even & margin of safety
How far revenue can fall before operating income turns negative, stated as a percentage rather than a feeling.
Lever sizing
What one point of gross margin, one percent of revenue or one day of inventory is actually worth, ranked, so effort goes where the arithmetic says it pays.
Price against volume
A grid showing how much volume a price rise can afford to lose before it destroys value. A pricing case argued on margin alone has not answered that question.
Scenario planning
A multi-year driver-based model, yours to keep, so a price change, a hire or an expansion can be tested before you commit to it.
Where it fits
One component of a five-part method.
Every component is a complete engagement on its own, and a step in the larger arc. Take this one, or run the whole Method.
Not sure Aperture Analytics is where to start?
Begin with a Business X-Ray, a fixed-fee diagnostic that shows you exactly which components will move the needle.