How a Firm Works
1 courses, in the order they are meant to be taken. You can start anywhere, and they build.
How to read the course codes
- -00 means start here.
- -01, -02 are steps on one path, in order.
- A letter (-T1, -P2) marks a track. Tracks run in parallel: take any track you like, in any order, without taking the others.
- -99 is the capstone. Take it last.
The path
- FIRM-01
Read the Statements
Step 1 on the single path through this series.
Open one real annual report on the SEC's free EDGAR system and learn financial accounting from it. You start with the accounting equation (assets equal liabilities plus shareholders' equity) and the double entry that keeps it true, then the timing question that separates cash from accrual, worked through gift cards and a rewards program. Then you read each of the four statements in that one filing (the balance sheet, the income statement, the cash flow statement and the statement of shareholders' equity) and prove that they tie together: net income into retained earnings, and the cash flow statement's ending cash into the balance sheet. Then you read the filing as a whole: how to find a 10-K and cite it by Item and page, what management's discussion says and whether the statements agree, which note holds the policy behind a number, what the auditor's opinion promises and what it does not, which estimates management calls critical, and which companies have to file at all. The one filing is Chipotle Mexican Grill's Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, filed February 4, 2026, chosen because it is short, has one reportable segment and no outstanding borrowings. Every figure is dated to that filing. The course closes with five questions you answer about a company from its own filing, page by page. It describes what a public document says; it is information, not investment advice, and it says so in three lessons. The first course in the How a Firm Works series.