Financial modeling practice that tests the model, not the screenshot
Most financial modeling courses end with a finished workbook you can download. You open it, study the formulas, maybe retype a few, and a week later you still cannot build a debt schedule from a blank sheet. Modeldrill was built around one rule: the only way through an exercise is a formula that fills cleanly and still works when the assumptions change.
Every answer cell is recalculated twice: once on the numbers you see and again with changed assumptions. A typed-in number, or a reference that slides the wrong way when filled, gives the right answer once and the wrong one the second time, and you are told which cell broke. That is the same test a reviewer applies when they change the growth rate and watch what happens.
Financial modeling exercises in a live spreadsheet grid
There is nothing to download. The grid runs the functions models rely on with the same arguments and results as Excel: SUM, IF, MAX, MIN, AND, INDEX, MATCH, CHOOSE, SUMPRODUCT, SUMIF, COUNTIF, ROUNDUP, PMT, IPMT, PPMT, NPV, IRR, XNPV and XIRR. Fill right and Fill down copy a formula with the references adjusted, just like dragging the fill handle.
That makes it useful where opening a real model is awkward: between meetings, on a train, or in the days before a modeling test. Progress is saved in your browser, and a free account keeps it across devices.
Learn financial modeling in five levels
The 45 model pieces are organized into five levels of nine, and each level only adds one or two ideas on top of what you already know.
- Model basics: grow revenue from one assumption, price times volume, cost as a share of revenue, gross margin, year over year growth, one formula for a whole block, payroll from headcount and raises, twelve months of subscribers, revenue mix by product.
- Income statement and schedules: fixed and variable operating costs, EBITDA margin, straight-line depreciation by asset and from the year of purchase, a fixed asset roll-forward, interest on the opening balance, tax only when there is a profit, losses carried forward, EBITDA to net income.
- Debt and cash: monthly payments for three loans, a quarterly amortization table, IPMT and PPMT, a revolver draw and repayment rule, cash and revolver fully linked, cash flow from operations, working capital from days, a cash roll-forward, a debt service coverage test.
- Valuation: unlevered free cash flow, discount factors and present values, the mid-year convention, NPV, IRR and profitability index, terminal value by perpetual growth and by exit multiple, enterprise value to equity value, XNPV and XIRR on dated cash flows.
- Analysis: a scenario switch with CHOOSE and a lookup by name, break-even by product, NPV across discount rates, a profit grid by price and volume, a terminal value grid, payback, CAC payback, lifetime value and cohort payback.
Within a level the pieces get harder one notch at a time. By the end of Debt and cash you have built a revolver that draws when cash runs short and repays when it recovers, with the cash balance and the interest linked both ways, not because you read about it, but because the exercise would not pass until you did.
Open the exercise list
DCF practice: from free cash flow to equity value
The Valuation level walks the whole discounted cash flow chain one piece at a time. Unlevered free cash flow from EBITDA, taxes, capex and working capital. Discount factors with and without the mid-year convention. NPV and IRR on the resulting stream. Terminal value by perpetual growth and by exit multiple, so you can see how far apart they land. Then the bridge from enterprise value to equity value, and XNPV and XIRR when the cash flows have real dates.
Each step is its own exercise with its own check, so a mistake in the discount factor is caught before it hides inside a valuation.
Excel modeling test practice for analyst interviews
Investment banking, private equity, corporate development and FP&A interviews often include a modeling test: build a three-statement forecast, a debt schedule or a DCF from a short case, under a time limit. The formulas are not exotic. They are the pieces in these five levels, written quickly, filled correctly and still right after the interviewer changes an assumption.
Modeldrill's timed mode puts a clock on each piece with hints and solutions locked until time is up. Run through the first four levels the week before a test and the case will feel like a series of drills you have already done.
Try a timed piece
Learn financial modeling by getting it wrong first
A hint is one click away, but the worked solution opens only after your second attempt. That is on purpose. Writing a formula, filling it across, seeing the second column break because a reference was not locked, and fixing it yourself is the part that sticks. Copying a solution before you have tried does not.
Every piece also explains why the reference formula is built the way it is: why the growth assumption is locked with a dollar sign on the column, why interest is calculated on the opening balance, why the revolver uses MAX and MIN rather than an IF.
Three statement model practice, one schedule at a time
A full three-statement model is too big to practice in one sitting, so Modeldrill breaks it into the schedules that feed it: the revenue build, the operating cost block, depreciation and the fixed asset roll-forward, the debt schedule, working capital from days, cash flow from operations and the cash roll-forward. Each one is a piece you build and test on its own.
Once each schedule is automatic, linking them into a model is assembly rather than invention. The Analysis level then covers what people do with a finished model: scenarios, sensitivities and payback.
Why hands-on beats watching
You can watch an hour-long video on building a DCF and feel like you understand it. Then you open a blank sheet, type the first discount factor and stop. The gap between recognizing and producing is the whole problem, and the only thing that closes it is reps.
A Modeldrill session is ten to twenty minutes of building model pieces, each one slightly different from the last. Ten sessions in, the reference locking, the schedule layouts and the valuation chain are automatic.
Financial modeling practice for students, analysts and founders
If you have never built a model, Model basics starts with growing revenue from one assumption and does not assume anything beyond basic Excel. If you already build forecasts, skip to Debt and cash, Valuation or Analysis and look for the gaps: most analysts have one schedule they have always copied from the last file, and the drills find it quickly.
Every piece is independent, so you can jump to the one you need for today's model and come back to the rest later.
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