Financial statement analysis

[Tim_Beyers]

Hello all,

I’m relatively new to Airtable and am trying to optimize my experience in my day job as a stock/securities analyst.

The main problem is Airtable is built to have a single type of value represented in a column. Excel is different in that data is expressed a field at a time, so you can have a column with all sorts of different data represented, which is ideal when each column is, say, a time period – such as a fiscal year.

I’ve hacked this a bit in Airtable by reversing the order: years / periods on the left axis and financial variables and formulas on the horizontal, and then expressing the data in a gallery.

That works but its less than ideal for sharing with my teammates since many are Excel power users. Airtable works better for me because I can embed it and it’s easier (for me) to read and keeps everything in a single digital notebook that’s accessible at my Mac at work and equally on my phone.

My goal is to figure out how to create a traditional, Excel-looking Airtable for financial statements that I can then do creative analysis against. Having that format would make it a lot easier to import or copy-paste. Right now I do the work a line at a time.

[Tim_Beyers]

Quick update as to where I am as of today. First, here’s what the base looks like:

Here’s where to go for a deeper look.

Two things I discovered in the building and rebuilding.

1. @W_Vann_Hall had a great tip for capturing numerical data presented as text in a filing. First, I set the fields as a rollup and left the aggregation function as “values.” That brought in all the data as presented. I then added a table and linked fields, but this time I made the fields numbers to see what that would do. Turns out … nothing. The text just became numbers for populating a simple formula. That’s a nice win for me because I can keep all the business metrics in a familiar format (and consistent with the way they were reported) while also creating a space for follow-on analysis. Pretty cool.

2. I can see the value in having lots of tables with links and cross links and using variables / tags to pull data for further analysis. I expect adding the pivot table block would make this far more powerful.

My next upgrade to this table and my analysis overall is to create tables that gather more unstructured intelligence, such as management bios, tenure, photos, glassdoor ratings, customer reviews and case studies, etc.

A single base that combines baseline financial data (not that important) with qualitative data (much more important) to look for higher level business drivers (most important) is beyond the scope of Excel.

Thoughts or criticisms?

Tim

[Gary_Stark]

Hi Tim! I can use some help in creating financial statements with columns as the timeframe, and different variables down the vertical axis. Are you available to discuss?

[Tim_Beyers]

Hi Gary,

Sure. I use Page Designer to accomplish this sort of thing, building a page for each period that includes various key metrics. Feel free to DM and we can set something up.

Thanks for asking,

Tim

[Gary_Stark]

Thank you so much!

Attached is a screenshot from Excel of what I’m trying to accomplish.

In Excel, I can put different formulas for each vertical time period (Year) column based on the Incentive (left most column), which is different for each row. I can then drag the formula horizontally. In the Airtable, each column has to have the same formula.

I think your setup may be exactly what I need. Would you be open to a screen share or conversation today? I can do anytime Friday other than from 9:30-10:30 AM EST. That said, if it’s confidential data or that does not work for you, I totally understand.

Thanks so much!

Gary

[Deniz_Bayraktar]

Hi @Tim_Beyers ! How is Airtable working out for you now with the type of creative analysis that you are doing. I am having a very similar use case in front of me and want to shift from excel as well.

Would be interested in your thoughts now that you have used it for a bit.

Best
Deniz