r/financialmodelling

Hi Guys,

Can anyone help me in getting a chance to give interview in thier company for the position of IB Analyst/ Financial Analyst/ Modelling/ Valuations profile as a fresher, like I've 1 year of workex in automation and I'm trying to switch into finance. I've completed advanced valuations, modelling, NISM 8,15, built valuation models on Maruti Suzuki, Sensex index, doing everything from my end, but the only issue im facing is getting shortlisted for interview because of my background in automation. If you could help me to just get to the interview, I'll give my 100% and prove myself there. Literally feeling stucked rn as I've applied to 100s of companies, some of my friends are telling it'll take a strong referral for entering in a new domain for the first time

I am 21M looking for suggestions on financial modelling on udemy. Which author course is better under 500 bucks, ?

Experts, any recommendations??

Hi everyone,
I recently completed my MBA in Finance from a Tier 3 college in Pune and I am a fresher.
I am confused between FMVA and EXIM/Trade Finance courses. I also do not know which institute is worth joining. For FMVA, I have looked at QuintEdge, The WallStreet School, IMS Proschool, and IIM Skills. For EXIM, I am still not able to find a good institute.
If anyone has done these courses or works in finance, please guide me. Which course would you choose for a fresher, and which institute would you recommend?
Thank you

Hi everyone. I need other people's view on something.

When preparing DCF models for work i always manually calculate IRR by using goal seek or manually changing the WACC. The reason I do this is because from my understanding Excel's IRR formula doesn't work properly when TV is calculated using the WACC as the circularity in the calculations causes the iterative process of the IRR formula (which is in itself just a glorified goal seek too). When using a multiple approach to calculate TV this shouldn't be an issue though.

However at my current company we usually use WACC and LTGR to calculate TV so it is indeed an issue. I first pointed this out but at nobody really believed me. In the meantime i've managed to convince my supervisor that the IRR excel formula is not accurate but everyone else in the group uses it and it is specially bad when preparing sensitivity tables for presentation as the whole thing is then not correct.

Since i am the only one who seems to see this as an issue I've come here to ask what are other people's take on this? Am i correct or am i just being stupid?

Basically, i completed the course due months ago but haven't given the final or practice exams (busy w uni internship & frm) and now my subscription expires on 26th july and i've forgotten all of it or most of it. To those who have passed kindly help with any advice material or anything that i can do to complete and pass within the remaining time.

Hi everyone,

I want to build a DCF model for a company, but I'm a little confused about where to start.

It's not that I'm unfamiliar with DCF. I've completed the Financial Modelling course on Internshala and also watched Parth Verma's Financial Modelling playlist on YouTube. While following his videos, I built a DCF model, but I feel like I was mostly copying what he was doing rather than truly understanding the process.

Now, I want to build DCF models on my own and work on real-world projects that will add value to my resume. Could someone guide me with a step-by-step approach?

Any advice, resources, or project suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I've been applying to a lot of jobs and notice financial modeling is a desired skill. While I do have a background in Sales Ops I never did any modeling. Can anyone tell me what are you mainly focused on in the financial modeling realm?

Hi guys,

Trying to learn financial modeling with some extra dead time I have. I recently graduated with accounting and finance and have passed all CPA exams, so I have a solid foundation.

I started by learning how to model with a basic three statement model and using simple historicals to project performance. That boosted my confidence but now overwhelmed trying to build a more sophisticated model ): . the amount of available information and possibilities seem endless, and I never end up confident in my assumptions even after reading management discussions and considering basic market conditions. I can understand a 10-k but need to learn next step of application.

Any advice (doing UNH model)?

I have been confused on choosing between different fields. I’m a self taught, no degree. I studied Finance mainly focused on Capital Markets, Investment Management and Banking. I am also interested in physics and electrical engineering. I’m studying that right now. I also have a software project in hand. But now I feel like I’m wasting my finance knowledge since I am studying engineering. I studying it full time. So any recommendations about it.

Anyone who has been like this?
Any advice?

Hello fellow redditors

Looking for views from people with PE, portfolio company, management equity, or compensation experience.

We are the management team of a formerly family-owned, high-growth business. A global private equity firm recently acquired a minority stake, and they are now proposing a Management Incentive Plan / MIP that would pay out when the PE firm and founder sells.

For context:
-EBITDA is around $100m
-Revenue is around $130m
- High-capex business, somewhat similar to real estate/infrastructure but operationally intensive
- Lean management team, around 15 to 25 people
- Founder still owns the majority and is already very wealthy, so a full sale by the founder is not guaranteed
- PE investor likely wants an exit in 4 to 6 years due to fund life
- Some members of management may want to retire in 5 to 6 years

The current proposal from PE is roughly:
-2% to 3% of the fully diluted equity pool
- Only on returns above 2.0x MOIC / 12% IRR
- Based on a 6 to 7 year exit case

The issue is that the proposal does not feel very lucrative or motivating for management, especially given the hurdle.

Based on our research, it seems like 8% to 15% of the fully diluted pool can be more common in PE-backed companies, especially where management is critical to value creation and there is no rollover/co-investment by management.

We are trying to understand whether it is reasonable to ask for something like:
- 8% to 15% of the fully diluted pool (Ratchet system)
- Subject to a 12% IRR hurdle
- With little or no payout below the hurdle
- Proper leaver protections for vested awards

The other major concern is liquidity. What happens if the PE firm exits but the founder does not sell? Or if the founder never sells? If management has vested and someone is a good leaver after 5 to 7 years, does the MIP just remain theoretical forever? We cannot force the founder to sell, and some senior people may retire before a full exit.

Questions:
- Is 2% to 3% above a 2.0x MOIC / 12% IRR hurdle unusually low for a lean but important management team?
- Is asking for 8% to 12% fully diluted above a 12% IRR hurdle unrealistic, or within market?
- How should management think about MIP value when there is no guaranteed liquidity event?
-In a minority PE situation where the founder may not sell, what protections should management insist on before accepting a MIP?

Not looking for legal advice, just trying to understand what is commercially fair and market standard before we negotiate further.

Thanks in advance.

I'm trying to decide between these two programs.

My goal is to break into finance after graduation, ideally in equity research, valuation, or corporate finance.

For those who've taken either course (or recruited candidates who have), which provides better practical skills and which is more respected by recruiters?

I'll also be building my own financial models and equity research reports alongside whichever program I choose, so I'm particularly interested in whether the extra cost of Wall Street Prep is worth it.

Would appreciate any insights.

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Hey everyone,

I have a couple of app ideas I’m looking to validate, and I want to run some basic financial projections (revenue models, basic costs, runway tracking) before I start writing code or jumping into deep development.

I tried using Excel/Google Sheets, but honestly, it feels way too generic and manual. I feel like I'm spending 90% of my time wrestling with cell formatting, linking tabs, and looking up formula logic just to get a super basic SaaS structure up and running. It should be much simpler.

I am completely new to the financial modeling field, so I don't need a massive enterprise spreadsheet with a steep learning curve. I just want a tool that understands software business basics (like recurring revenue tiers or user growth) without making me build the math from scratch.

What are you guys using to quickly model out your early-stage ideas? Are there modern alternatives to spreadsheets that are clean and founder-friendly? Thanks!

I'm an ex IBanker turned corporate strategy at major telco. I've been tasked with making our team as AI pilled as possible as the organization wants to be on the frontier of AI and automation. We have CoPilot in Teams, agent builder and CoPilot in Excel. My perception is that there was an initial wave of FOMO with AI, boards pushed big spends driving enterprise uptake on CoPilot/Claude/GPT which boosts their top line revenue but, outside of software eng and acting as a more robust Google Search, email drafter and verbose legal contract interpreter, I have not seen meaningful uptake to completely replace entire manual workflows. Granted I think the incentive to streamline and automate work is less in a 9-5 versus professional services where time is of essence, so perhaps the use cases I am seeing are less creative thus far.

I'm looking for inspiration on ways it has been successfully integrated into analyst style workflows in Excel such as financial modelling - where do you find it useful, where do you find it weak and what tools - Tracelight, Shortcut, Endex, Claude in Excel, CoPilot, others? - have you found useful... or perhaps you have had issues with the major tools, or maybe you just think it's better to do things in Excel by hand?