What Every Finance Student Should Learn Before Graduating with Riley Edwards
In this episode of Financial Modeler’s Corner, Paul Barnhurst sits down with Riley Edwards to discuss what it’s like starting out in financial modeling and how those skills carry into real-world financial planning. The conversation covers early mistakes, learning experiences, and the importance of presenting financial information clearly. Riley shares his journey from studying finance to working in wealth management, along with how financial modeling helped him build confidence, improve communication, and handle client conversations more effectively.
Riley Edwards is a Financial Planning professional at IG Private Wealth Management, working with Fox-Revett Heslegrave & Associates. He is an Adrian College alumnus and is currently building his career in the financial planning industry. Based in Schomberg, Ontario, Canada, he focuses on helping clients understand their finances and make better decisions through clear analysis.
Expect to Learn
What early mistakes in financial modeling look like and how to fix them
Why understanding the basics is more important than just building models
How financial modeling improves confidence in professional settings
Why presentation skills matter just as much as technical skills
How modeling helps handle difficult client conversations
Here are a few quotes from the episode:
“Learning modeling is easier when you have people around you to share ideas and solve problems together.” - Riley Edwards
“Financial modeling is not just about numbers. It’s about understanding where you are today and where you’re going tomorrow.” - Riley Edwards
Financial modeling is not just about spreadsheets. It’s about turning numbers into something people can understand and use. As Riley explains, the real value comes from how you present and communicate that information, especially when the conversation is not easy.
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Company’s Website: https://www.foxrevettassociates.com
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In today’s episode:
[00:00] – Trailer
[02:57] – First Modeling Mistake
[05:07] – Getting Started in Financial Modeling
[07:29] – Learning Experience & Education
[10:04] – Most Rewarding Part of Modeling
[12:23] – Importance of Presentation Skills
[13:37] – Challenges in Learning Modeling
[15:29] – Current Role in Wealth Management
[17:38] – Personal Motivation & Background
[19:00] – Using Modeling in Client Work
[21:18] – AI in Learning & Modeling
[25:18] – Excel Tips & Shortcuts
[27:28] – Rapid Fire Round
Full Show Transcript:
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:31):
Financial Modeler's Corner is the world's premier modeling podcast. It is brought to you by Financial Modelling Institute, the world's leading financial modeling accreditation organization. Welcome to Financial Modeler's Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA, the FP&A guy. And in this podcast we talk all about the art and the science of financial modeling with distinguished financial modelers from around the globe. The Financial Modellers Corner podcast is brought to you by the Financial Modelling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations globally in financial modeling, and that's why I earn the Advanced financial this week. I'm thrilled to welcome Riley Edwards to the show. Riley, welcome to Financial Modeler's Corner.
Guest: Riley Edwards (01:21):
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:23):
Riley Edwards is passionate about helping people make sense of their finances through clear and practical analysis. He is known for his adaptability and strong work ethic, and enjoys working with clients while using financial modeling to bring numbers to life and support better decision-making. He has completed his mutual funds license and is currently pursuing the Qualified Associate Financial Planner (QAFP) designation, along with additional securities and insurance licenses in Canada. Riley is a 2025 graduate of Adrian College and enjoys staying active, spending time with his family and his dog Levi, and finding new ways to connect finance with everyday life.
Guest: Riley Edwards (02:42):
Thank you very much. That was a great little snippet there. Appreciate that. You're
Host: Paul Barnhurst (02:46):
Welcome. So let's start, every guest gets it that horror story, kind of worst modeling experience or one of the worst you had. I'm going to guess it was probably in college given you've been out, what about a year now?
Guest: Riley Edwards (02:57):
Yeah, that's correct. 100%. Yeah, it was definitely, I think it was actually our very first three statement model presentation. So obviously we would go through each schedule and then we kind of do a summary presentation and this was our full presentation for the full three statement model and our balance sheet could not balance. So we're up there, you're filling out each section. I think we were just completing the debt schedule and I noticed nothing was balancing. So I'm trying to awkwardly change things while speaking wasn't going well. And then I'm pretty sure the whole error stemmed from having a negative sign in one of the formulas that just didn't need to be there. And after that it was fixed. I'm pretty sure a student actually in the class pointed that out to us during our presentation. Not the best grade, definitely not the most prideful moment, but it happened. And hopefully I moved on from that. Now,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (03:49):
Been there when I did the advanced financial modeler, I got all done, had a little over an hour left and I'd finished the bones of the model and my balance sheet wasn't balancing. I spent a few minutes, didn't see it. I'm like, well, I'm going to do everything else. I needed to do my executive summary and clean everything up formatting. So I did everything, got all done and I dunno, probably 20 minutes left and I went back to it. Fortunately I found it with about 10 minutes and it's like you said, it was just a sign. I had a sign in the wrong place, either that or had brackets in the wrong place, either the sign or the brackets for working capital. Can't remember which one it was, but it was just a simple working capital formula mistake. And once I fixed it, it's like, ah, now it balances. I feel much better.
Guest: Riley Edwards (04:27):
Yes, for sure. I've
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:29):
Been there with clients. That's always funny when you got to present the model to the client and you're trying to figure out why it doesn't balance.
Guest: Riley Edwards (04:34):
And that's definitely a learning curve. I think I'm coming through and experiences. Things don't always go well. Sometimes you fake it till you make it sort of situations, but no, I agree. Definitely having a little bit of an edge and what's the word I'm looking for, maybe some balance and when you're presenting in case something doesn't go wrong is always a good skill to have.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:54):
Yeah, you definitely have to learn how to manage it under pressure and how to work your way through because that's life. Things aren't always going to go as we planned.
Guest: Riley Edwards (05:02):
Right, a hundred percent. So
Host: Paul Barnhurst (05:03):
How did you get interested in financial modeling? What interested you in that?
Guest: Riley Edwards (05:07):
Yeah, I think it started off in school, obviously being a finance major and then minoring in economics, you have a lot of ties to the business degree essentially. So coming from a more business background, grew up in a blue collar family, optimising where business decisions really do come from a standpoint of efficiency and numbers and understanding where you need to be tomorrow from where you are today. And then you look in the definition of financial modeling, it almost says that verbatim, right? Looking at numbers today to predict tomorrow or something along the lines of that was my course code description. So I was like, perfect, this seems something I could totally be interested in. I've already done some discounted cashflow models for other business courses and I get an exam out of this, which was the advanced financial modeler's exam. So that kind of started my journey down the financial modeling journey.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (05:57):
Got it. And so did you actually take the advanced financial modeler then? Was that part of the course?
Guest: Riley Edwards (06:01):
It was. So yeah, when I signed up it was like an intro and then we did the advanced financial modeling class after that intro class and that included the exam fee within the course code. And then my professor gave us almost four weeks of just study guides for the exam, which honestly was a lifesaver for me. I think that was one of the major reasons I actually passed that exam.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (06:24):
Yeah, you definitely have to prepare. It's a good exam if you put in the time, it's not hard. Correct.
Guest: Riley Edwards (06:30):
I would agree with that statement.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (06:32):
It's just a little bit of pressure in the sense of trying to get it all done in time. If you don't put in the time, good luck if you do your homework and that's the case for a lot of things, but especially here, not like you could just guess this isn't the multiple choice test where you could be like, all right, if all else fails, choose C.
Guest: Riley Edwards (06:51):
One of the arguments my professor made to us was it's an exam for people going from getting it to work to making it efficient and robust and looking nice. Once you're at the stage of making it look nice and function the way you want it to, the exam becomes more of a challenge of completing it within the timeframe I think versus just not understanding. I think maybe what you're doing in the model.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (07:15):
So I'd love to get your thoughts, given you had a class, how beneficial was that in your modeling journey doing the A FM? Give some of your thoughts of maybe how it helped you, whether you thought it was really beneficial, we'd love just to get your take on it.
Guest: Riley Edwards (07:29):
Yeah, for sure. I think the overall experience phenomenal. Without that class, I really do believe I wouldn't have succeeded in passing the financial modeling exam. Now with that being said, I also had the best opportunity to work with Andrew Blaik, who fully loves the modeling journey journey. He loves the AI integration and everything. So being a part of his class specifically really motivated, I think productive learning, efficient learning, and then overall success in the modeling course and the exam that I took, I really liked learning how the three statements of a business were tied together in a model that could be manipulated to forecast and make claims and support those claims with evidence. And I think that's what really clicked in the class for me and what made me want to pursue this scale more down my career.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (08:29):
And so what would you say to anyone who's thinking about taking the A FM? Any advice you'd offer them about it? About taking it?
Guest: Riley Edwards (08:38):
Yeah. I think if you're planning on being in the financial realm, in the industry of finance specifically anything displaying information, presenting information, having a background from financial modeling will support you greatly in giving you two things. One, I think it gives you confidence in displaying information and making claims about that information. And then two, it gives you a set of skills to present data that may already be available in new ways. And that to me is I think a huge advantage, especially in this generation with AI coming up. If you're able to prove claims and theories through actual fact and evidence, well now you're going from just storytelling to actually creating that story and I think it's pretty impactful. So to anyone ever thinking about taking a class or if you're thinking about taking the exam, I think you should definitely do your research. And if you're just jumping right into the exam, there's some support groups I've noticed on Facebook, Reddit as well that are phenomenal that really do talk about what it's about, what the exam's going to be like, what it's going to go through, and it gives you a good idea of where maybe you are in that journey if you're ready to take that exam or not.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (09:54):
Good advice. I appreciate that. I'm curious, what did you enjoy most about your modeling classes? It sounds like you took two, an intro and then the advanced. What was the most rewarding part of it?
Guest: Riley Edwards (10:04):
I think completing the exam. So it was a full year journey for school my senior year, but it was technically two semesters. So it was kind of like a buildup of a whole year's worth of studying effort and energy to then finally completing the exam to then waiting. I think they made us wait a month, month and a half to find our results.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (10:23):
Results was about six weeks, if I remember. Yeah.
Guest: Riley Edwards (10:25):
So I was sitting in my chair at home, I think it was the week after graduation, and my professor said, Hey, the results are out. Go look. And I've never been more excited to check an exam result because I've spent a whole year preparing for it. So I think for sure the most satisfying was passing the exam, but one of, I'll say the more funner, or if that's a word, fun experiences that I had in the class was actually building the model from nothing. So once you have, I'll say somewhat of a foundation, you understand the schedules that you're trying to create for what reason, and then just putting from a blank page and inputting data to create some sort of model structure, I find that very satisfying. It filled my OCD void to the max and it was awesome. It was really a satisfying experience.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (11:12):
Love it. There is something fun about taking a blank canvas and creating something, modeling. People talk a lot about the science and how important structure and design is, but there's a creativity aspect. There's something enjoyable to get all done and be like, oh wait, I actually built that and it works.
Guest: Riley Edwards (11:31):
I really do relate it to a carpenter. Building a wall, right? In one day's worth, if you can build a wall, start from finish, you do feel like you accomplished something. You didn't build the whole house, but you accomplished one wall. That's how it kind of felt when you went through every statement, every section of the schedule, this model of that. That's kind of the satisfaction I get too.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (11:52):
I hear you. I think that's a good analogy. I often compare modeling design to building a house because look, you need the blueprints and you need structure, and you need a qualified contractor, like a qualified modeler, all those type of things. So I'm with you. I think we're on a similar page there. I'm curious, what's something you wish you'd learned more about when it comes to finance and modeling in school? Is there an area now that you're out in the workplace, you're like, wow, it would've been nice if they would've taught us more about that?
Guest: Riley Edwards (12:23):
Yeah, for sure. I think definitely the one thing is presenting the information in different ways. The one conversation I had with an investment banker the other day was he took a modeling class, but it wasn't geared for corporate finance. It was actually geared for investment banking, which I thought was super unique and I wish I could give you more information on what exactly he said to me, but there was a lot of dots and numbers in that reference. So what I'll say was I could learn more ways to present the information I'm given. I think I'm better suited to then answer as many questions as possible about that information. So I think for me, that's where I kind of stem from. If I could have learned just a little bit more about presenting it and in making my own inferences or assessments instead of assumptions from the data
Host: Paul Barnhurst (13:11):
Presentation is invaluable. Not just modeling, but in general. So often people think modeling is all about Excel and the reality is a huge part of it is being able to present. I agree with you. I think that's something that I think everybody wishes they had learned more. It's something we have to practise a lot. It takes time. I like that one. What was the hardest part when you first learned modeling? What were those things that drove you crazy?
Guest: Riley Edwards (13:37):
I think kind of stemming back to what I said before, getting the model from, oh, I just need to get this to work. Or finding the right function, making sure the function's working correctly to actually making it look visually appealing or I guess transitioning into the presentation of it was definitely the hardest part. I think once you get the formulas, once the numbers click, there's the assessment of, okay, I know what I'm doing now. How do I make this look as good as possible? That to me was way easier than do I know what I'm doing yet? That was the harder part for me for sure.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (14:16):
So really it sounds like getting the fundamentals down, really learning, I use this formula here, the schedules need to be this way. I link it this way, I need to put this in if I have to do a revolver, all those type of things that if you get wrong, you're going back again and again, like you were the one day and trying to figure out why is my balance sheet not balanced?
Guest: Riley Edwards (14:37):
And I would argue the hardest part was troubleshooting those errors is figuring out where was my error to begin with. And again, I want to give him all the praise, but without the professor's help Professor EK's help, I would've been on those same issues consistently. And that to me is where having a class or even a group, like I said, a peer group, someone you can reference ideas off of, makes modeling a lot more enjoyable. For sure.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (15:02):
Most things are best learned with others. Sometimes we can learn best on our own, but there's some real value, even if you're learning on our own of having a resource, a professor, a student, somebody you can bounce it off with, Hey, can you take a look at this because I'm about ready to throw my computer out the window or whatever it might be.
Guest: Riley Edwards (15:19):
Absolutely, yes. Well,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (15:21):
Tell us a little bit about the work you're doing today. I know you're working on some licences, it looks like you're helping people with financial planning. So maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing today.
Guest: Riley Edwards (15:29):
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, currently I'm working as a junior associate for a financial planning firm under IG Wealth Management. My team is comprised of about six people right now, and we're continuing to grow. So my day-to-day right now has been very, I'll say rudimentary. I just graduated school. I'm doing all the basics. I'm really going through the training, getting licenced, getting properly acquitted with people. So that does take time. However, I'm very fortunate that I'm not the only, I'll say young associate a part of my office, not necessarily my team. So there's a group of us that come from different backgrounds that are able to kind of collaborate about things that we're learning day to day. But the goal is to be a fully certified financial planner, hopefully in the next three years. And yeah, really just help clients pursue their own ambitions, goals, dreams, through proper wealth management.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (16:25):
Love it. That's always a great goal. What made you interested in wealth management? Why did you choose wanting to help plan for others? What was it about that?
Guest: Riley Edwards (16:35):
Yeah, I think it stems more from a personal reason. Like I mentioned before, I grew up in a more blue collar family. My grandfather broke his body to make an income and he was paid really handsomely for it. However, throughout your life you realise that if you look at how you save your money, how you spend your money, people could end up in very different places come retirement time. And my grandfather was a very lucky man. He saved money, well, had good advice, and he was able to buy his eldest daughter a house, his middle daughter, a house, and his youngest son a house. So now you look at, I'll say a not so lucky individual that didn't save as well. Well, he's fighting for an apartment at 75 years old in the greater Toronto area where we're having a housing crisis, and that's a tough battle to have at that age. So it just gave me a little bit of motivation to not only want to support myself in a good financial standpoint, but express the knowledge that I've learned to others and try and help them the best I can. And that's really where it stems from, I think is of servicing.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (17:38):
While my background is in fact, I am also passionate about financial modeling. Like many financial modelers, I was self-taught. Then I discovered the Financial Modeling Institute, the organization that offers the Advanced Financial Modeler program. I am a proud holder of the AFM. Preparing for the AFM exam made me a better modeler. If you want to improve your modeling skills, I recommend the AFM program podcast listeners save 15% on the AFM program. Just use Code Podcast.
Guest: Riley Edwards (18:25):
Yeah, one of my best role models, 100%
Host: Paul Barnhurst (18:28):
Always great when we have family, that can be a role model. So thank you for sharing that example and that's awesome. You want to help others and best of luck, like you shared the example of the 75-year-old, we've all seen it where people have made not the best financial decisions for whatever reason. Could be lack of education, could be poor choices that end up resulting in some real challenges that could have likely been avoided. Not always, but often with good plan.
Guest: Riley Edwards (18:56):
I really agree.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (18:57):
How has your modeling education helped you? How has that helped you today? The
Guest: Riley Edwards (19:00):
Two major things for me, I think when I graduated school, having that certificate was actually having confidence in job interviews. I attained a skill that I felt confident to use in any atmosphere as long as I was given structure to use it. That was definitely one really useful tool. And then two would be I think to make claims in whatever setting that may be a corporate setting, a client setting an office setting with peers and support it with fact, and I know I've talked about it a few times, but the one thing I'm working on right now is we're working on personal budgets for some of our higher net worth clients that don't know some of their day-to-day expenses. They've just grown to such a large point in their own lives that they don't know who's paying their credit cards, they don't know how much is being paid on credit cards.
(19:51):
And it's a unique standpoint because then you have them making claims or making inferences about things that are happening that may not be necessarily true. And to kind of circle that back, learning how to present information to people that necessarily make your pay is a difficult conversation when they might be wrong. So to learn how to navigate that has been really helpful, especially modeling because you can show some of the same things, multiple different ways to get people to come to their own conclusions about it. And that to me has been the best tool I've ever used is having tough conversations with visuals to support 'em and not actually having to say that those, I'll say tough words to hear.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (20:35):
You've learned something that took me a long time and I think takes a lot of people, the best way to help someone come along is like you said, help them realise versus tell them often when they see those numbers and they're like, wait, I'm spending how much on what?
Guest: Riley Edwards (20:48):
You'd be surprised the shock. Even sometimes myself, I get looking at a credit card statement, it's a lot easier
Host: Paul Barnhurst (20:55):
To spend. Unfortunately. I don't think I would at this point, but my younger self probably would've
Guest: Riley Edwards (21:00):
Fair. Absolutely.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (21:01):
I want to ask just a couple more questions than we're going to do our rapid fire section before we wrap up here. So first one is ai. How did you guys use ai? How was AI approached in school? Because obviously you went to school at a different period than I did when I went to school. There was no ai, we were still using textbooks forever.
Guest: Riley Edwards (21:18):
Yeah, definitely a different atmosphere together. I think my generation, if you were born kind of that 2000 ish era, very different. You got the growth of tech through middle school, high school, you went to college. Now we have ai. It was interesting, it was hard to integrate it I think, into the classroom at first, especially for professors because there was no way to prove that students weren't necessarily doing the work assigned. However, I think when you look at something like financial modeling, having it as a tool to actually support what you're building was super beneficial, super unique, super beneficial. And to explain this a little bit further, I think it was if you're building a simple model using simple formulas, using YouTube or Google, you could probably figure out what formulas you need and the ability to implement those into your spreadsheet. When you start looking at three statement models and full corporate models, full investment models, risk analysis, you then now have such a large variety of variables where ai, I know I've used copilot a lot, is really helpful to kind of plug in certain areas and give you insight. And I haven't personally used AI to build a full model, but I know you've mentioned to me that you've played around with it and you did actually a section on that. So I'd love to get your advice on what that's like.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (22:43):
So I'll share my take. So I've done 15 episodes, we call it the mod squad. It's whole series you can find on my YouTube channel has its own playlist around Excel agent tools that will build models for you. Early results were it has work to do, it could help you, but it's just not there yet. Last one we tested Claude was it can build a model, but you still need to know what you're doing. You still need to know how to audit it, you still need to know the foundations and it will likely make some mistakes. So you better be able to check it really well. Where I'm at now is my early advice was make sure you know the foundations really well and the vast majority of people will get more out of learning modeling and Excel than they will ai. Now I say you should be playing with agents, but make sure you understand the foundations well. It often uses more complex formulas than we're used to. It's something you didn't build, so you need to know it inside and out. And so I'm still very much preaching. Look, you need to know the fundamentals. You need to know what you're doing. AI is a magnifier, but go ahead and use it for models and obviously the more complex, the less you're going to be able to use it, the dirtier data, whatever. But there's so many use cases now it's getting really, it's getting good. So that's my take.
Guest: Riley Edwards (24:05):
No, that's good to hear. That's really good to hear because I think the one thing I used it for a lot was the implemented formulas, structure and templates. So now to hear that there's actual production of models being built, it's unique.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (24:17):
So basically you can go watch it. I'll release some videos this week. I released a full episode. We tested Claude 4.6 on an A FM case with who runs the FMI and it got 90% of the way there. It didn't get the print stuff right, it got a couple, it got the deferred tax wrong. It should have had, I want to say a min and it had a max of zero, but your income tax can actually go negative depending on tax credits and a few other things like that. And it had some formatting issues, some of the colour and things, but the balance sheet balance, the revolver was correct. It built all the schedules, it did the scenarios. It put in the switch statement and then it did a CFM case. Probably got that 1 90, 90 5% right? I mean the IRR was within 100 basis points of his official answer.
Guest: Riley Edwards (25:06):
Wow, that's impressive.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (25:07):
We were very impressed. So it has got a lot better with a release of Claude Opus 4.6. Alright, so one more question before we head to rapid fire. What's your favourite Excel shortcut?
Guest: Riley Edwards (25:18):
My absolute favourite. I think it's honestly the control shift. Being able to select a wide variety of tools or cells is such a speed factor.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (25:27):
That's a very handy one. Control shift down, up, right, left, whatever you need it to be to select a range. Yeah,
Guest: Riley Edwards (25:32):
I would argue that or probably the F four toggle, right? For absolute verse relative. I think that would be the other one that I use the most in modeling, for sure,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (25:43):
Bad financial models can lead to bad decisions or worse. So how do you minimise the risk of a bad model? You make sure the models you build are great Financial modeling Institute developed the Advanced Financial Modeler accreditation programme to help modelers like you. The AFM programme offers a step-by-step approach to building world-class financial models. The programme ensures that you know the best practises in model design and structure and will help you brush up on your Excel and accounting skills too. Be the one on your team to build great models. If you want to impress your boss and your clients, get a FMI accredited podcast listeners, save 15% on the AFM programme. Just use code podcast at http://www.fminstitute.com/podcast.
Guest: Riley Edwards (26:54):
I have no idea.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (26:55):
You're like, where is he going? This scares me. If you want them to stay in place, you have to throw some money at them
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:01):
For the dollar
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:01):
Size back to your F four reference. Alright,
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:05):
Well done sir.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:06):
So let's go to rapid fire. How this works is you can't say it depends. You have to answer kind of yes or no, one side or the other. And then at the end you can elaborate on one or two because I get there's nuance if there's some that you're really passionate about. And just so everybody knows, we modified this a little bit. He's still early in his career, so we adjusted a couple of the questions, but most of 'em are here. So here we go. We're going to see how quick we can run through this VBA in models, yes or no?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:28):
Yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:29):
External workbook links, yes or no?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:31):
Yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:32):
Should models always be print ready, yes or no?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:36):
No.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:36):
Are merge cells ever acceptable?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:39):
No.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:39):
Should financial modelers learn Python in Excel?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:43):
Yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:44):
What about power bi?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:46):
Yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:47):
Okay. Should every financial modeler be able to build a fully integrated three statement model?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:53):
I'm going to say no, but I'll come back to that.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:55):
Will Excel ever die? Yes or no?
Guest: Riley Edwards (27:58):
No.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:59):
That's a pretty common answer. Have you used AI to help you build a model? I think we know the answer is yes. We talked about that. So we'll keep going here. What financial statement is most important for modelers in your opinion? Income statement, balance sheet or cashflow?
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:13):
Cashflow.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:14):
Favourite LLM, Claude copilot chat. GPT or other?
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:18):
I would say copilot right now for me.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:20):
Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision-making tool?
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:25):
No, but they're definitely up there.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:27):
We do get no from time to time. What do you think is, if it's not model,
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:31):
I would have to argue that it would just be the budget merely if they actually have the funding to do what they want.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:36):
That works. And then what's your lookup function of choice? What lookup function do you like?
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:41):
V lookup.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:42):
V lookup. I'm surprised given you're more recent. On Excel, I would've expected X lookup.
Guest: Riley Edwards (28:46):
So the reason I actually have is because of my old spreadsheets. A lot of them when they updated, I was still having the VLOOKUP formulas, so it was like I just never changed to be completely fair.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (28:59):
Interesting. It's surprising we don't see that much with people just out of school, so I like it. Old school.
Guest: Riley Edwards (29:03):
Yeah, what I was used to, I guess
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:05):
You said you wanted to elaborate on one of those so go ahead. It
Guest: Riley Edwards (29:08):
Wasn't external work links. I'm sorry, you got me.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:10):
So was that model should always be print ready? Was that the one?
Guest: Riley Edwards (29:13):
Yes, I think it was that one, yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:14):
Fully integrated three statement model. You said you'd expand on that one
Guest: Riley Edwards (29:17):
A hundred percent. No, I don't think you should be able or have to or be required to make a three statement model. I think it's super beneficial and it will help you. However, I think having access to implement tools to be able to display the information and present it is more important than building the specific model. However, again, I am green in the modeling industry, so I will take my licking for that.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:42):
I'm with you. I actually say no as well. I never build a fully integrated three statement model for work until I started my own business four years ago because I worked in FP&A. And you mostly dealt with the p and l. Most people will say yes, I'm a no, so I'm with you.
Guest: Riley Edwards (29:54):
Okay, let's go one in my book. I
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:57):
Think we'll wrap up here, but before I wrap up, if our audience wants to learn more about you or potentially get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that?
Guest: Riley Edwards (30:04):
Yeah, they can reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram as well, or go online to https://www.foxrevettassociates.com. It's all one word and if you search up Fox Revit, it will come up pretty quickly. Again, we are Canadian-based. We're licenced I think in five or six states in the us. I don't want to just blurt them out there in case, but if you have any inquiries about Canada, I will be more than welcome to help.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (30:27):
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me Riley. Really appreciate it. Good luck as you grow your career and help people with their financial planning and appreciate you joining the show.
Guest: Riley Edwards (30:38):
Hey, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure. And all the best, sir.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (30:41):
Alright, thanks. Financial Modeler's Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year, I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification, and it made me a better financial modeler. What are you waiting for? Visit FMI at www.FMInstitute.com/podcast and use Code Podcast to save 15% when you enroll in one of the accreditations today.