Financial Modelling

Financial Modelling & Forecasting

Models built by someone who has had to defend them — to boards, investors, auditors, and lenders.

  • Integrated three-statement models
  • Scenario and sensitivity analysis
  • Investor and use-of-proceeds models
  • Monthly forecasting that stays useful

A financial model is only useful if it reflects how the business actually works — and only credible if the person presenting it can answer the hard questions. Cipher Financial builds models designed to be used: for running the company month to month, for raising capital, and for making decisions with real money attached.

Modelling services

  • Integrated financial models — three-statement models (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow) with clean structure, documented assumptions, and no black boxes.
  • Monthly forecasting — rolling forecasts that get updated, compared to actuals, and improved — not built once and abandoned.
  • Cash-flow models — direct and indirect cash-flow forecasting, burn-rate and runway analysis.
  • Revenue modelling — bottoms-up revenue builds that reflect your actual drivers: customers, pricing, cohorts, capacity, or contracts.
  • Expense planning — headcount plans, operating budgets, and capital requirements.
  • Scenario and sensitivity analysis — base, upside, and downside cases, and clarity about which assumptions actually move the outcome.
  • Investor models — models built for financing processes, structured the way sophisticated investors expect to see them.
  • Use-of-proceeds modelling — how a raise will be deployed and how long it lasts under different scenarios.
  • Board reporting — model outputs distilled into reporting a board can absorb in minutes.
  • Business planning — the numbers behind expansion decisions, new products, and strategic plans.

What makes a model worth having

  • Driver-based — assumptions you can point to and debate, not hard-coded guesses buried in formulas.
  • Auditable — a structure another finance professional can follow without a guided tour.
  • Maintained — a model your team can update after the engagement, with documentation to match.
  • Honest — downside cases that are genuinely tested, not decoration.

Models are typically delivered in Excel or Google Sheets, working with your existing accounting data and systems.

Model architecture

How a model worth having
is put together

  1. 1

    Drivers

    The assumptions that actually move the business: customers, pricing, capacity, headcount.

  2. 2

    Revenue build

    Bottoms-up revenue constructed from the drivers, not a growth percentage typed into a cell.

  3. 3

    Cost structure

    Headcount plans, operating expenses, and capital requirements tied to the same drivers.

  4. 4

    Three statements

    Income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow that tie out, every period.

  5. 5

    Scenarios

    Base, upside, and downside cases showing which assumptions matter and what breaks first.

  6. 6

    Outputs

    Runway, covenant headroom, use of proceeds, and a board pack readable in minutes.

Discuss financial modelling & forecasting
for your business

A brief, confidential conversation with Toronto-based CFO leadership. No obligation, and useful either way.