How we check numbers
Last updated 19 October 2026
A finance lesson is only useful if its numbers are right. This page sets out where Plainledger's figures come from, how they are checked, and what the site does and does not claim.
Where figures come from
Company figures come from the company's own published filings: audited results and financial statements filed with the stock exchanges or posted on the company's website. Definitions come from the standards themselves or from bodies that publish them, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the IFRS Foundation. Each lesson ends with a list of the exact documents it used, so you can open them and check.
Where a lesson uses standalone accounts, it says so. Standalone covers the company alone. Consolidated accounts add its subsidiaries, and mixing the two is a common source of wrong comparisons.
How numbers are checked
- Printed lines first. Figures are entered as they appear in the filing, line by line, not as subtotals worked out by hand.
- Subtotals are rebuilt. Code adds the printed lines together and compares the result with the printed total. A balance sheet must balance, a cash flow must end at the balance sheet's cash, and profit must tie to its components. If any check fails, the page does not build.
- Derived figures are labelled. A ratio, a margin or a combined line is worked out from printed lines, and the lesson says when a figure is the site's own arithmetic rather than a line the company prints.
- Sentences are tested against the numbers. Claims such as "rose", "more than" or "almost nine times" are asserted in code against the underlying figures before publication.
- Calculators are tested. Each calculator's model is compared against separately written arithmetic across thousands of slider combinations, and the page's starting values come from the same model that runs in the browser.
When a figure cannot be confirmed
If a line was not cleanly readable in the source, or two statements differ for reasons the filing does not explain, the lesson says so and leaves the figure out or labels it. It does not fill the gap with a guess.
How lessons are written
Lessons are drafted with the help of an AI model and edited against the sources. The numbers are checked by code as described above. The site does not present any lesson as the work of a credentialed accountant or as professional advice, and it does not use review badges. The sources are listed so that you can verify what you read.
Corrections
If you find an error, write to us through the contact page with the lesson and the line you question. Confirmed errors are corrected in the lesson itself, and the page's modified date changes when its content does.
Advertising and independence
Advertisements, if shown, are served automatically by Google and are separate from the lessons. No company discussed here pays for coverage, and no example is chosen because of a commercial relationship.