Averages are much more likely to be skewed by outliers, such as a few very large companies with Net Sales much greater than the majority. This wide difference, for any Income Statement or Balance Sheet account, could greatly skew an average making it less representative than a median.

All of the Median Company Income Statement line items are shown as a % of Net Sales, while the Median Company Balance Sheet’s line items are shown as a % of Total Assets.

Please refer to the Glossary section of this report, or section on our website at www.icfo.pro.

The smallest industry groups for which we present data contain 7 companies. However, this size is potentially less reliable and if you consider this comparison base to be too small, we suggest that you obtain a report for a less specific group within the same major industry group. This may mean switching from a 4-digit SIC code to the corresponding 3-digit SIC code. In fact, this is what we do automatically in our reports when presenting data for any industry segment (e.g., Small, or Year 2009, etc.) that has less than 7 companies.

We believe that we offer a comprehensive set of financial statement accounts that is relevant to all of the industries covered in our products, and making this set more detailed may potentially reduce its reliability and relevance. Likewise, we are unable to “unpack” certain line items further, such as “Other Operating Expenses” or “Manufacturing Overhead” to reveal exactly which expenses these contain. The standard accounting practices of companies within your particular industry will help determine which expenses are typically reflected in these broader account categories.

No, this type of data is not available due to the restrictions placed by our licensing agreements and the proprietary nature of the data set.

“Median Company” refers to a virtual company that in all of the presented characteristics would display median performance in relation to its industry. For Industry Ratios within Industry Metrics, the ratios themselves are median companies represented for each individual ratio and may represent different companies across different ratios and do not directly correlate to the Income Statement (Profit & Loss or P&L statement) and Balance Sheet figures from the virtual median company. Please see the MEDIAN COMPANY BENCHMARKS section of this report for further details.

To add a company logo, or the logo of your client, you can do so during the Add Company process. From your My Companies page, select Add Company and from the Logo box, select the logo file from your local computer. You can also add a logo by editing the company information by going to the My Companies page, click the dropdown arrow next to the company name and choose Edit, then from the Logo box, select the logo file from your local computer.

iCFO’s benchmarking data is organized according to the exact SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) & NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code-structure and industry-titles. The keyword search feature in iCFO will find your industry only if you use a word appearing in the SIC or NAICS industry titles.

If you’re unfamiliar with these systems, helpful resources include OSHA’s SIC System Search, and the US Census Bureau’s NAICS Search. You can also click on Advanced Search and pick your largest category and fine-tune with the information in each subsequent Search field.

Our system allows benchmarking analysis with as little as 7 companies. However, given that statistical significance occurs with a sample size of around 30, we recommend that you have at least 30 companies before proceeding with your analysis. If your Regional restrictions limits your sample size to too few, alter your selections to be more broad and select Recalculate.

Estimated Cost of Debt (%) refers to the interest rate your company, or your client’s company is paying for liabilities or loans. This figure should include both your Short-term & Long-term obligations, and ideally a weighted average should be calculated for that Operating Period. The default in the system is at Prime Rate + 2%.

You could keep this figure at the default until you acquire & calculate a more precise Cost of Debt for your company. Note: There are analyses in the system that depends on this value, especially Profitability metrics such as “Spread Between Earnings on Debt and Cost of Debt”. To determine an accurately weighted cost of debt, follow one of the following methods:

This box is only an indication for your own reference regarding the type of data you are entering, identifying whether or not a statement entered is an actual statement, or a pro-forma, forward looking statement or projection. You may want to consider entering additional information regarding the data in the Comment box.

iCFO requires both Income Statement & Balance Sheet data to run the majority of its available analyses. Both Net Sales and Total Assets are required fields when adding a statement. Note: If you don’t currently have Balance Sheet data and wish to “Save and Exit” and return later to enter Balance Sheet data, the work-around would be to proceed “Next” into the Balance Sheet section of Statement entry, and simply key in a positive placeholder into “Total Current Assets” or any Asset field.

You could then “Save and Exit”. To return to your Statement, select your Company, observe your entered Statement(s), and selecting the downward-facing arrow to the left of the Statement you wish to modify. Select “Edit” and complete your Statement entry.

iCFO’s Import Statement feature currently works only with XML files, and very specific Excel files that contain one column for accounts and an adjacent column for financial figures. iCFO does not support or import Excel files that have multiple operating periods in one workbook, but does analyze multiple tabs (e.g. Income Statement, Balance Sheet) so long as they are oriented in a way representing one operating period per workbook.

If you would like to have an XML or Excel file imported and are having difficulty, contact us at iCFO [email protected].

Use one of the two Industry Metrics analyses when you wish to generate a trend report looking at ONLY the Industry peers median data (these reports do not COMPARE your data to your industry peers). Use the Business Analyzer’s reports when you wish to analyze and COMPARE your company’s financials directly. These reports will also provide relevant benchmarking data.

When you’re in the Income Statement and Balance Sheet tabs (including Cash Flow for a Four Years report), you’ll see buttons below the navigation tabs allowing you to toggle between “%” and “$”. Select between these two to view data in these formats, respectively. Note that the “$” conveys information in US Dollars.

When you’re in the Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Financial Ratio tabs (including Cash Flow for a Four Years report), you’ll see buttons below the navigation tabs allowing you to toggle between Table and Chart/Graphical views. Select between these two to view data in these formats, respectively.

Use either the Print or PDF feature from any report analysis, always located to the right of your report’s navigation tabs. You could also download Excel or Word (these are in beta versions and at times being optimized to accommodate new browser updates).

To return to the list of all available analytical report options, select “Report List” from the top right of the page, located in the dark-grey navigation bar next to “My Companies” below your “My Account”, “Help” and “Sign Out”

To return to the list of your Companies, select “My Companies” from the top right of the page, located in the dark-grey navigation bar next to “Report List” below your “My Account”, “Help” and “Sign Out” links.

You could certainly choose between Regional and National benchmarking from within any report by selecting “Edit” in the light-grey navigation bar above your report tabs. This bar also contains your Industry Code and description. Select “Edit” and the light-grey bar will expand downward, revealing Regional information with the ability to select State, or return to National or “All” States.

Go to Report List (by selecting Analyze to the right of Statement) and select “Compare & Spread”. This report will allow you to compare your company data right alongside industry data, for each itemized Income Statement and Balance Sheet account, as well as Financial Ratios. From this module, you could add multiple statements for comparison as well. When more than one Statement is added to this report, a Cash Flow tab will appear, showing trends between each statement (assuming they are of operating periods following one another) as they pertain to Cash Flow from Operating, Investing, and Financing Activities with overall Cash Flow Results.

The analytical functionality of these reports are actually identical, although Loan Risk is from the “lender’s” perspective, while Business Risk is from the “business owner’s” or “business advisor’s” perspective. This changes only the tabs available to the right of the initial financial tab, including “Subjective Evaluation and Suggested Rates” and “Industry Subjective Evaluation”. In the Loan Risk analysis, these tabs give a suggestive interest rate for lenders based on the financial performance, and perceived values entered into the aforementioned two tabs. This base rate could be set from My Account available in the top right of iCFO.

For the Business Risk analysis, a “Risk Score” is given, which works quite like any standard academic grading scale: 70% is barely passing, 80% is better, 90% is more optimum and so forth. These Risk Scores could be compared against other Risk Scores achieved by other Statements from other operating periods, etc. Note: you can enter the “what-if” scenarios from either of these reports, by selecting any Key Performance Indicator’s title.

All large financial datasets have multiple problems such as data entry errors (e.g., negative amounts of assets and liabilities) or totals of assets, liabilities and equity not adding up. To deal with these data problems, iCFO has developed a cleaning routine that includes over two hundred checkpoints applied to each financial statement. Rather than using list-wise deletion and removing problematic statements altogether, which would reduce the representativeness of the data, the iCFO procedure imputes the problematic or missing values using complex formulas of weighted averages. The components and weights included in the calculations vary depending on the availability and quality of the relevant data.

iCFO’s dataset is garnered from various reputable sources, including credit reporting bureaus, financial and government institutions. It is comprised of over one million financial statements in a given year of mostly privately-held companies. Developed while working with large datasets of financial information at the University of Wisconsin, iCFO has refined unique and powerful data management approaches that include a meticulous data cleaning procedure to ensure that the data meets necessary statistical research assumptions such as normality of distribution and temporal stability, all resulting in the largest and most accurate database of its kind.

All large financial datasets have multiple problems such as data entry errors (e.g., negative amounts of assets and liabilities) or totals of assets, liabilities and equity not adding up. To deal with these data problems, iCFO has developed a cleaning routine that includes over two hundred checkpoints applied to each financial statement. Rather than using list-wise deletion and removing problematic statements altogether, which would reduce the representativeness of the data, the iCFO procedure imputes the problematic or missing values using complex formulas of weighted averages. The components and weights included in the calculations vary depending on the availability and quality of the relevant data.

Datasets are updated annually, and in some cases biannually. After the last, full year-end financial data has been collected and treated, our dataset is updated.

The “Industry Metrics One Year” report uses only the last available financial year of data available. It is ideal as company-size trend comparative, as it displays industry trends for Small, Medium, and Large company sizes. Trends from the smallest 25% of companies (based on Net Sales) will appear in the “Small” column, medium 50% of companies appear in the “Medium” column, and the largest 25% of companies appear in the “Large” column. You’ll also find an “All” company aggregate column. This report is ideal for comparing trends between different company sizes.

An “Industry Metrics Four Years” report will use the last four years of financial data available, with each column containing trends over each of the last four years respectively. This report also contains a “Cash Flow” analysis showing trends between each of the last four years. This report is ideal as a longitudinal analysis of trends occurring in your industry of interest through time.

While both 4-digit SIC and 6-digit NAICS codes are the most specific groups within their respective industry classification systems, our database allows for more specific segmentation analysis in some cases. If you are interested in having us perform such an analysis, please contact us at [email protected]

Our system allows benchmarking analysis with as little as 7 companies. However, given that statistical significance occurs with a sample size of around 30, we recommend that you have at least 30 companies before proceeding with your analysis. If your Regional restrictions limits your sample size to too few, alter your selections to be more broad and select Recalculate.

We recommend starting with the “Business Performance Scorecard” to perform a comprehensive analysis of your company’s performance across Liquidity, Asset Efficiency and Profitability perspectives. There are a total of 15 Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in this report, each containing 6 points of data, 1 from your company and 5 from the Industry’s Bottom 10%, 25%, Top 50%, 25% & 10%, respectively. This level of benchmarking data will enable you to understand exactly how far away your performance is from your peers at the median and respective distribution points. You could quickly understand where certain strengths and weaknesses exist in your financial performance, noting the concise verbal descriptions conveying how your company is performing on any metric and how you compare to industry peers.

This analysis also contains a “Common Size” analysis, whereby you could also compare your company’s itemized Income Statement and Balance Sheet trends with your industry peers held at the exact same size as the company analyzed. View data in “%” or “$” and in “Table” or “Chart” views.

When determining your weaknesses, you could proceed to model “what-if” scenarios using the Liquidity (which also includes Asset Efficiency measures), Profitability and Growth analyses from the Report List. This analysis also contains a “Common Size” analysis, whereby you could also compare your company’s itemized Income Statement and Balance Sheet trends with your industry peers held at the exact same size as the company analyzed. View data in “%” or “$” and in “Table” or “Chart” views.

Another important analysis to perform also helping identify financial strengths & weaknesses is the Business Risk and Loan Risk analyses.

Net Balance Position (NBP) is a stringent measure of Cash Liquidity, and goes beyond what traditional liquidity ratios can detect (like the Quick & Current Ratios). NBP goes beyond looking at clusters of the Balance Sheet, like Current Assets and Current Liabilities, and teases apart the Balance Sheet to account for the finer components of these account clusters.

For example, if Company A has $100k in Cash, and $400k in Accounts Receivable (AR), while Company B has $250k in Cash and $250k in AR, the Quick & Current Ratios will view these two companies as performing equally, if all other aspects of the companies are the same. In fact, Company B has far more Cash on hand, while appearing to carry less AR, a sign that Company B is collecting faster than Company A.

NBP seeks to understand the relationship between Working Capital Available and Working Capital Required, in the following way:

You could see how NBP requires the company to account for their AR & Inventory accounts as a Working Capital Need. iCFO also analyzes same-size industry peers, to determine the ideal amount of Cash your company should keep on hand.

Note: Your company may have a large amount of Assets within the AR and Inventory accounts, but if taking longer than 30-days to collect from your clients (Collection Period) or taking too long to turn your Inventory (Inventory Turns or Days), while Liabilities are due every 30-days, you risk a Cash Flow issue, that NBP helps you detect far more reliably than any traditional Liquidity measure.