GDA · Product
Open Any Software Stock in the Financial Engine and Rebuild the Valuation Yourself
The new Financial Engine puts filed SEC statements, a 5-year DCF, a reverse-DCF growth solver and the R&D Return benchmark for 250 public software companies on one screen. Here is how to use it, and what Full Access adds.
What the Financial Engine is
The Financial Engine is Golden Door's 3-statement model. It connects audited 10-K and 10-Q income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements to a deterministic 5-year unlevered DCF, a reverse-DCF solver that backs out the growth the price implies, and a 1-year lagged R&D Return benchmark.
Coverage is 250 public software companies, with 166 ranked in the R&D Return universe. [1]
Every verdict comes from the filed numbers, not from opinion. The page publishes its own formulas, so you can check the work.
- Rule of 40 = year-over-year revenue growth plus unlevered free cash flow margin. 40% or better is the elite line.
- R&D Return = the change in gross profit over the year, divided by the prior year's R&D spend. It shows how many gross profit dollars each $1.00 of last year's R&D produced.
- 5-year DCF enterprise value = discounted free cash flow for years one to five plus a discounted terminal value.
- Buy, Watch or Pass follows a fixed rubric: Rule of 40 at 40% or more with operating or FCF margin at 15% or more is Buy, and a composite fundamental score of 55 or more is Buy, 35 or more is Watch, and below 35 is Pass.
How to use it in five steps
- Pick a company. Open the Financial Engine on any covered ticker, such as Salesforce, or seed one of the listed public filings: MSFT, CRWD, DDOG, NOW, PLTR, SNOW, ADBE or PANW. [1]
- Read the three statements. Switch between the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Set the cadence to a 3-year summary, a 4-quarter rollup, a 12-month grid or a 5-year horizon, and choose summary, department or full chart-of-accounts detail. [1]
- Stress the DCF. Open Interactive DCF and Tearsheet, edit the drivers, and run the scenario presets: Base, Upside (+25%), Downside (-15%) and a zero-based cash case. The 2-way sensitivity matrix tests growth against cost escalation, and Goal Seek reverse-solves the growth and spending needed to reach a target EBITDA. [1]
- Place it against peers. The R&D and Peer Benchmark view puts each company on the R&D Return 2x2 so you can see whether it is compounding, harvesting, burning or fading. [1]
- Ask the Copilot and take the work with you. Each statement row has an Ask Copilot prompt. The Model Auditor checks formula integrity and that the balance sheet balances, and grids copy out as TSV with live =SUM() formulas for Google Sheets. [1]
Most of these views are also how our published Research is built. The ratings, the DCF value per share and the R&D Return rank quoted in each piece come from the same engine, so a reader can open the Financial Engine and test any claim we make.
What is free and what Full Access adds
The model, the DCF studio, the R&D 2x2, and every grade, verdict and reverse-DCF result on the Software Ratings Index inside the Financial Engine are free to explore.
Full Access is a $1,000 annual pass bought on the Ratings page. It unlocks the full Research for every covered name, the scorecards and regimes across the universe, and the 5-tab Excel workbook export.
After checkout you return to the ratings index with every name unlocked.