Financial analysis is about shaping the future. It provides the tools management needs to make sophisticated judgments about complex and challenging business issues. As a corporate controller, chief financial officer, and retired CPA, I found that outside auditors, purchasing managers, accountants, and corporate executives were making bad decisions because they didn't understand how to apply financial analysis to real-world situations. One example was a company president who was signing leases with a 24% imputed interest rate because neither he nor his auditors understood how to analyze leases.