Time Value of Money – Foundations to Application is your complete guide to one of the most fundamental concepts in finance and accounting. This series builds from the ground up — starting with why a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future, working through the mechanics of interest (including simple interest, compound interest, nominal interest rate and effective interest rates), present and future value, annuities (ordinary annuities and annuities due), inconsistent cash flows, and finishing with a full discounted cash flow analysis of a real business acquisition.
Throughout, the focus is on building genuine intuition first, so the formulas become tools you understand rather than equations you memorize. You’ll estimate a weighted average cost of capital built from the cost of debt and cost of equity, build a free cash flow forecast, calculate a terminal value, and arrive at an enterprise value — all in Excel. Every input and assumption is explained along the way, and the complete model is available to download.
Bonus episodes cover sensitivity analysis and return metrics including NPV and IRR. Whether you’re coming from accounting, stepping into corporate finance, want to understand how time value of money impacts personal finance, or somewhere in between, this series gives you both the conceptual foundation and the applied skills to work with these ideas confidently.
