4.7. Financial Statements in Finzati
Lesson objective
Navigate Annual, Quarterly, and TTM data.
Open Financial and select Income, Balance, or Cash Flow. Confirm currency units, period, and frequency. Switch among Annual, Quarterly, and TTM according to the question being asked.
Use several annual periods for structural trends. Use quarters and TTM for recent changes. Do not mix different frequencies in the same comparison.
Record key figures in a research worksheet rather than relying only on visual memory.
Choose the period before choosing the metric
Financial statements become much easier to read when you first decide what time question you are asking.
| View | Best for | Main caution | |---|---|---| | Quarterly | Recent acceleration or slowdown | Seasonality can distort one quarter | | Annual | Full fiscal-year structure and long trends | Can become stale between year ends | | TTM | Most recent twelve-month flow performance | Must use comparable rolling periods |
Income-statement and cash-flow items are generally flows over a period. Balance-sheet items are generally stocks measured at a date.
TTM flow ≈ Latest four reported quarters added together
But for a balance such as cash:
Current cash = latest reported cash balance — not the sum of four quarterly cash balances.
The wrong-period trap
Suppose a retailer earns most of its profit in the holiday quarter. Comparing that quarter directly with the immediately previous quarter may imply explosive improvement. Comparing it with the same quarter one year earlier is usually more informative because seasonality is more comparable.
A disciplined workflow
Select period → Read statement → Compare like-for-like → Calculate trend/margin → Explain change → Cross-check cash and balance sheet
Period discipline prevents many apparently sophisticated but fundamentally invalid comparisons.
What you should remember
- Define the question before choosing the period.
- Preserve the date and unit.
Practice
Create a table containing Revenue, Net Income, OCF, CapEx, FCF, Cash, and Debt.