Finance
Lab Curriculum.

BUG FOUND: finance graduates who can read a textbook statement, but cannot reconcile a messy real one.

$ step-01 brushup // weeks 1–2 — Topics taught:

1. The three statements: profit & loss, balance sheet, cash flow — and how they connect.
2. Double-entry basics, journals, ledgers, and trial balance.
3. Excel for finance: formulas, lookup, pivot, and formula auditing.
4. Accruals, depreciation, and provisions — where textbook answers diverge from real books.
5. Bank reconciliation basics.
6. Reading a real annual report and spotting key items.

$ step-02 debug // weeks 3–4 — Production Debugging. Tools: Excel, a sample ledger / ERP export, bank statements.

• BUG #1: Trial balance does not balance — find the missing / duplicated entry, correct it with a journal note.
• BUG #2: Bank reconciliation mismatch — trace each difference to timing, error, or missing entry; clear it item by item.
• BUG #3: Faulty model: a forecast formula references the wrong period — find it, fix it, show the corrected forecast.
• BUG #4: Cash flow does not tie to profit — reconcile profit to cash, find the working-capital / non-cash cause.

$ step-03 navigate // weeks 5–7 — Codebase / System Navigation:

• Trace a balance-sheet figure to source documents (invoices, receipts, bank entries) across a messy ledger.
• Correct a figure with proper documentation and an audit trail, not a plug number.
• Reconcile three reports that disagree; explain which is right and why, in writing.
• Build a month-end checklist (reconciliations, accruals, reviews) and apply it to a sample month.

$ step-04 ship // weeks 8–9 — Shipping Features: capstone — an audit-ready financial model with a reconciliation note, assumptions, and limitations stated, presented as if to a reviewer.

$ ship → PROOF — exact output: financial model file, reconciliation note, and a assumptions/limitations sheet.

$ run --lab finance → ✓ SHIPPED, job-ready