Executive Summary
- Audited financials are source material; CMA data is a derived, reformatted presentation
- CMA data includes three years of forward projections that financial statements don't contain
- CMA computes specific ratios and MPBF that don't appear in standard financial statements
- Banks need both — financials as the audited source, CMA as the analytical structure built from them
Source Material vs Derived Analysis
Audited financial statements — prepared by your Chartered Accountant under standard accounting requirements — are the authoritative source record of what actually happened in your business each year. CMA data takes this source material and reorganises, extends, and analyses it into the specific structure banks use for credit decisions. One does not substitute for the other.
Projections Financial Statements Don't Contain
Audited financial statements are, by definition, historical — they report what already happened. CMA data extends three years forward into projected performance, which simply doesn't exist in your audited financials at all, since auditors don't certify future projections. This forward-looking component is built specifically for the CMA submission, drawing on your business plan and growth assumptions.
Ratios and MPBF That Only CMA Computes
Standard audited financial statements don't include an MPBF calculation, a structured DSCR presentation across the loan tenure, or the specific Fund Flow Statement format banks expect — these are CMA-specific outputs, computed from your financial data but not present in the financials themselves.
Why Banks Need Both Documents
Banks require audited financial statements as the underlying, certified source of truth, and CMA data as the structured analytical document built from that source — submitting CMA data without the underlying audited financials to support it gives the bank no way to verify the figures, while submitting only audited financials leaves the bank without the projections and ratio analysis it actually needs for the credit decision. See our broader guide on DPR versus CMA for how all three documents — financials, CMA, and DPR — fit together in a complete loan file.