Green means editable
Where a field is green you type. Grey fields are formula-driven and locked, so the engine's own logic cannot be overwritten by accident.
The Numbers No One Explained
Each module is explained in three parts: what it does, why it earns its place, and the same worked business run through it. Every section is narrated, and every figure carries into the next step.
Narrated explainer
Course introduction
Course trailer · seventeen seconds
What the fifteen modules do, and what they were worth to one real-shaped business.
The case study
A fourteen-person chilled-food manufacturer selling to three regional supermarkets and a wholesale distributor. Turnover £1.42m, profitable on paper, permanently short of cash. Every module below is applied to the same business, so the figures carry from one step to the next.
Where a field is green you type. Grey fields are formula-driven and locked, so the engine's own logic cannot be overwritten by accident.
The engine communicates in colour. Red marks a breached floor, a failing ratio or a cost base that is no longer covered.
Figures entered in Step 2 flow into statements, ratios, cash forecast, break-even and the board pack. Nothing is re-keyed.
A number that does not change an action is decoration. Each module ends with the specific decision it exists to support.
The numbering is a map. If today's question is break-even, open break-even. The modules stand alone as well as together.
The case study runs on the same company from Step 1 to Step 15, so you see how one decision changes the next module's arithmetic.
Three screens that set the guardrails and load the figures. Everything downstream inherits what you decide here.
Step 1
Identity, currency, period and the cash line you refuse to cross.
In plain English
This screen is where you tell the tool who you are and, far more usefully, how low your bank balance is allowed to go before you would call it a problem. That lowest safe balance is your liquidity floor — think of it as the fuel light on a car. Once it is written down, every warning later on is measured from that line instead of from zero.
Money in the bank is not the same as money you can spend.
Establishes who the business is and, more importantly, the liquidity floor — the cash balance below which the business is in trouble regardless of what profit says.
Narrated explainer
Step 1 · Business profile
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsHow much cash am I genuinely unwilling to go below?
What usually goes wrong hereSetting the floor too low because it looks better. Payroll, tax you have collected, and one bad month all sit above zero.
You type it in — business label
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate holds £118,000 in cash. Payroll is £47,000 a month and the bank requires one month of payroll plus VAT cover on deposit, which the owner had never written down.
VerdictNorthgate has £58,000 of genuinely spendable cash, not £118,000. Every later module now measures against £60,000 rather than zero — which is why the cash forecast in Step 6 raises an alarm eight weeks earlier than the bank statement would.
Step 2
The one place raw figures enter the engine — typed, or uploaded in a single pass.
In plain English
Everything the tool knows comes in here, once. You type your sales, your costs, what customers owe you and what you owe others — or upload one spreadsheet and it reads the lot. Nothing gets typed in twice anywhere else, which is where most spreadsheet mistakes come from.
One place for the raw numbers means one version of the truth.
Collects revenue, cost and balance-sheet lines once. Nothing in the rest of the engine is ever re-keyed, so there is exactly one version of the truth.
Narrated explainer
Step 2 · Financial inputs
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsDo I actually know my numbers for this period — and do they reconcile?
What usually goes wrong hereMixing periods — a year of sales against a month of costs will look brilliant and mean nothing.
You type it in — revenue
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate's bookkeeper uploads twelve months of figures from the template rather than typing them. The engine calculates the position instantly.
VerdictA 40% gross margin collapsing to an 8.9% operating margin says the problem is not pricing alone — £441,000 of fixed overhead is eating three-quarters of the gross profit. That single observation directs the whole diagnosis that follows.
Step 3
Profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow, assembled automatically.
In plain English
The tool takes what you entered and lays it out as the three standard reports: what you earned and spent, what you own and owe, and where cash actually moved. Profit and cash are different things — you can be profitable and still unable to pay wages — and this is the screen that shows you the gap.
Profit is an opinion about timing; cash is a fact.
Turns the inputs into the three statements a bank, investor or board expects — reconciled, with no manual formula work.
Narrated explainer
Step 3 · Financial statements
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsCan I show a complete, reconciled set of accounts today, not in March?
What usually goes wrong hereA healthy profit line with a shrinking cash line. That means money is stuck in stock or in unpaid invoices.
Worked out for you — operating profit
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate's owner believes the business made £96,500. The cash flow statement disagrees about where it went.
Verdict£55,500 of last year's profit is sitting in customer invoices and cold-store stock, not in the bank. Northgate is not unprofitable; it is financing its own customers.
With the accounts assembled, the engine stops reporting and starts judging: what is healthy, what is deteriorating, and what needs action this week.
Step 4
A written read-out of what the statements are saying.
In plain English
Now the tool grades the period. It compares this stretch with the last one and with what you said you would do, and highlights the handful of lines that moved enough to matter. It is the difference between reading forty numbers and being told which four changed the story.
You do not need every number, you need the ones that moved.
Converts the statements into plain-language commentary: growth, margin movement, cost behaviour and what changed against the prior period.
Narrated explainer
Step 4 · Performance review
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsIf I had five sentences to explain this period, what would they be?
What usually goes wrong hereApplauding growth in sales without checking whether the profit on each sale went the same way.
Worked out for you — revenue growth vs prior year
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate grew revenue 6.4% and made less money than the year before.
VerdictGrowth was bought, not earned: £85,000 of extra sales came with £44,000 of extra overhead and a thinner margin. The review names distribution as the largest adverse line, which is precisely where Step 7 will look.
Step 5
Twenty-two ratios, each with the question it answers and the action it demands.
In plain English
Ratios are just one number divided by another to make it comparable. How much of each pound of sales you keep, how quickly customers pay, how much debt sits against the business. Alone they mean little; against last quarter and against your industry they tell you where the pressure is building.
A ratio turns a big number into a comparable one.
Every ratio is presented with meaning and consequence, not just a value. Red means intervene; green means the position is defensible.
Narrated explainer
Step 5 · Decision ratios
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhich one ratio, fixed this quarter, moves the business most?
What usually goes wrong hereChasing a ratio for its own sake. Every one of them can be flattered for a month without the business improving.
Cash conversion cycle
—
Cash released by 69 → 45 debtor days
—
Worked out for you — current ratio
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate's ratios are mostly acceptable. Two are not, and they are the two that explain the cash shortage.
VerdictChasing debtors from 69 days to 45 releases £93,000 — more than the entire annual operating profit — without selling a single extra tray of product. That is the highest-return action available to this business, and it is free.
Step 6
Week-by-week cash in, cash out and closing balance against your floor.
In plain English
This is a week-by-week picture of the next three months of your bank balance: what is coming in, what is going out, and what is left on the Friday of each week. Thirteen weeks is long enough to see a problem and short enough that you can still do something about it.
Cash trouble is almost always visible weeks before it is felt.
The short-horizon survival view. Thirteen weeks is long enough to act and short enough to be accurate, which is why lenders and turnaround advisers insist on it.
Narrated explainer
Step 6 · 13-week cash forecast
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsIn which week do I run short — and how much must I move before then?
What usually goes wrong hereAssuming customers pay on the date on the invoice. Forecast using the day they actually paid last time.
First breach of floor
—
Peak shortfall vs floor
—
Worked out for you — week 1 closing
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate's bank balance looks healthy today. The forecast shows week seven differently: a VAT payment, a machinery instalment and a slow-paying supermarket land within nineteen days of each other.
VerdictThe gap is £21,400 in week nine — and Step 5 already found £93,000 sitting in overdue invoices. Collecting a quarter of the overdue ledger removes the crisis entirely. No overdraft extension, no discounting, no panic.
Step 7
What each product, service or client actually earns after the cost it consumes.
In plain English
Margin is simply what is left from a sale after the costs of delivering it. Here you see it product by product and customer by customer, so you can tell the difference between the ones that are busy and the ones that are profitable. They are frequently not the same names.
Your biggest customer and your best customer may be two different people.
Separates revenue from profit. Volume leaders are frequently margin losers, and this module makes that visible before you chase more of the wrong work.
Narrated explainer
Step 7 · Pricing and margin analysis
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhich prices go up, and which work do I stop taking?
What usually goes wrong hereForgetting the costs that hide in service — delivery, returns, rework, and the free extras nobody logs.
The screen flags it — supermarket a · £610k revenue
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Supermarket A is Northgate's largest customer at 43% of revenue, and the owner treats it as the anchor of the business.
VerdictThe largest customer loses £52,800 a year once it carries its share of overhead. The options are a 9% price increase, removing the dedicated delivery run, or an orderly exit — but the decision can now be argued with a number instead of loyalty.
Step 8
The volume that covers your costs, the safety margin, and the sales needed for a target profit.
In plain English
Break-even is the level of sales at which you have covered every cost and are exactly even — the first pound after that is profit. Knowing it turns a vague worry about a quiet month into a specific target you can measure any Wednesday afternoon.
Know the number you must hit before anything you earn is yours.
Three figures — selling price, variable cost per unit and fixed cost — produce the number the entire business plan hangs on.
Narrated explainer
Step 8 · Break-even analysis
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsHow many units must we sell before the business earns anything at all?
What usually goes wrong hereA break-even point that only works at full capacity. If you cannot physically make that much, the plan is fiction.
Margin of safety
—
Units for £200k target profit
—
You type it in — unit selling price
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate sells a chilled tray at £15.00 with a variable cost of £9.00. Fixed cost is £441,000.
VerdictNorthgate must sell 73,500 trays before it earns a penny, and is clearing that by only 22%. A 5% price rise — seventy-five pence a tray — removes 8,166 units from the target. That is one price conversation worth more than a year of extra selling effort.
Step 9
Where profit leaks, and which lever seals it fastest.
In plain English
Rather than asking how to grow, this screen asks what would happen if things got worse — costs up, prices squeezed, a big customer leaving — and shows how much of your profit each shock removes. It then ranks the defences that buy back the most profit for the least disruption.
Defending the profit you have usually beats chasing profit you do not.
Tests the four classic levers — price, volume, variable cost, fixed cost — to show which returns most per unit of management effort.
Narrated explainer
Step 9 · Profit protection
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhere is a one percent improvement worth the most to me?
What usually goes wrong hereTesting shocks one at a time. In real life the cost rise and the lost customer arrive in the same month.
Worked out for you — price +1%
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
The owner intends to launch a discount to win volume. The engine tests the idea first.
VerdictThe discount needs an 18.5% volume increase to stand still, and the market will realistically give 6%. The plan destroys £36,900 of profit. Price is the strongest lever in this business in both directions — which is exactly why it must not be given away.
What you intend to do, whether you did it, and whether the large spend is justified.
Step 10
A twelve-month plan built on the assumptions already tested upstream.
In plain English
The budget is next year written as numbers instead of intentions. Sales by month, costs by month, and what the bank balance should look like along the way. Its real job is not accuracy; it is giving you something to compare reality against.
A budget is a measuring stick, not a promise.
Turns intent into a monthly plan for revenue, cost, profit and cash — using the pricing and break-even work rather than a fresh guess.
Narrated explainer
Step 10 · Annual budget
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhat am I committing to deliver this year, month by month?
What usually goes wrong hereSpreading the year evenly across twelve months. Almost no business is evenly busy.
You type it in — budgeted revenue
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate's budget is built from the decisions the earlier modules produced, not from optimism.
VerdictProfit rises from £127,000 to £199,780 with no revenue heroics — the entire increase comes from decisions already justified in earlier modules. The budget stops being a wish and becomes an assembly of tested commitments.
Step 11
Budget against actual, line by line, with a cause and an owner for each gap.
In plain English
Variance is the gap between what you planned and what happened, and this screen explains the gap rather than just reporting it — how much came from selling more or less, and how much from prices and costs moving. That distinction points at completely different fixes.
Knowing you missed is useless; knowing why you missed is the whole point.
Closes the loop. A variance is only useful when it names a cause and a person, which is what this module forces.
Narrated explainer
Step 11 · Budget variance
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhich gaps are timing, and which are real performance problems?
What usually goes wrong hereCelebrating an underspend. Sometimes it means discipline, sometimes it means maintenance that did not happen.
The screen flags it — revenue
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Q2 revenue came in £18,400 under budget. The instinct is to blame the sales team.
VerdictOnly £3,500 of the revenue miss is real; £14,900 is a July order. The genuine problem is £9,600 of unbudgeted distribution — the same cost line Step 4 flagged and Step 7 traced to one customer. Three modules, one culprit.
Step 12
Capital projects judged by every standard method at once.
In plain English
Before spending a meaningful sum, this works out how long it takes to earn the money back and whether the return beats simply leaving the cash alone — including the fact that money received in three years is worth less than money today. It also checks whether the spend would push you through your cash floor on the way.
A good investment you cannot afford this quarter is still a bad decision.
One set of project assumptions appraised simultaneously by NPV, IRR, payback and discounted payback, so the decision is not hostage to a single method.
Narrated explainer
Step 12 · Investment appraisal
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsDoes this machine earn more than the money it ties up?
What usually goes wrong hereCounting the savings and forgetting the disruption, the training and the month it does not run properly.
You type it in — initial outlay
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
A £180,000 automated packing line would cut Northgate's variable cost by 55p a tray and remove two agency roles.
VerdictNPV is positive at £67,507 and IRR of 22.4% comfortably beats the 10% cost of capital, so the project creates value. But discounted payback is 3.6 years against a 3-year target — so it should be funded from the £93,000 of released debtor cash rather than a 3-year loan whose repayments would breach the liquidity floor.
The part most tools omit: recording what was decided, who owns it, and what happened next.
Step 13
Each decision, the figures behind it, and the date it was taken.
In plain English
Every decision the tool helped you reach is written down with the numbers that were on the screen at the time and what you expected to happen. Months later you can see whether the reasoning held, instead of arguing about what everyone remembers.
Write down what you expected, or you will never know if you were right.
Attaches the analysis to the decision it produced, so a choice made in March can be defended — or reversed — with evidence in September.
Narrated explainer
Step 13 · Decision record
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhy did we decide that, and on what numbers?
What usually goes wrong hereRecording the decision but not the expected result. Without it there is nothing to check against.
Worked out for you — 12 mar · raise price 5% from april
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Five decisions came out of one afternoon with the engine. All five are logged with their arithmetic.
VerdictThe log is not bureaucracy. In September, when the supermarket disputes the price increase, the record shows the £52,800 loss that justified it — dated, sourced and unarguable.
Step 14
Owners, deadlines and status for every action the analysis generated.
In plain English
Analysis only pays when somebody does something. This is the short list of who is doing what by when, with the value attached to each item, so the ones worth real money do not sit behind the ones that are merely easy.
A number without an owner and a date is a comment, not a plan.
Analysis without an owner is commentary. The register converts each red signal into a named task with a date.
Narrated explainer
Step 14 · Action register
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWho is doing what, by when?
What usually goes wrong hereA register that only grows. If nothing ever closes, the review meeting has quietly become a reading group.
Worked out for you — chase overdue ledger to 45 days · finance
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Three weeks after the review, the register is the only honest account of progress.
VerdictTwo of four actions delivered were enough to lift the week-nine cash position above the floor. The one overdue item is the £9,600 distribution overspend — visible, owned, and impossible to quietly forget.
Step 15
One page: position, risk, and required action.
In plain English
The last step turns everything above into a short, readable summary for the people who were not in the detail — a bank manager, a board, a business partner. Position, pressure points, decisions taken, actions outstanding. Plain sentences, with the numbers behind each one.
If it cannot be explained in one page, it is not yet understood.
Compresses the entire engine into the page a director, lender or partner will actually read.
Narrated explainer
Step 15 · Management brief
Why this module matters
You enter
It returns
Decision it supportsWhat does the person funding or governing this business need to know today?
What usually goes wrong herePadding it with every chart you produced. The brief is the conclusion, not the workings.
Worked out for you — position
Case study · Northgate Foods Ltd
Northgate needs the bank to keep its facility in place while the packing line is bought from cash.
VerdictOne page, four attachments, no rewriting. The bank is not being asked to trust the owner's judgement — it is being shown the working.
Three tools that sit outside the numbered steps, so the work is reviewable by somebody other than the person who did it.
Set any two periods side by side and see what moved, by how much, and in which direction the trend is running.
Statements, ratios, cash forecast, variances and the management brief, collated into one issuable document.
Every figure changed, when and by whom — so a revised conclusion can always be traced to a revised input.
Closing
No new customers, no new products, no borrowing. Northgate Foods moved £253,700 of value using figures it already had — because each module named the decision the numbers were asking for. That is the whole argument for working this way.
Narrated explainer
Closing summary