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WDAY, Workday Inc.

Workday is the enterprise AI platform for managing people, money, and agents.

Workday provides more than 11,500 organizations with cloud solutions powered by artificial intelligence ("AI") to help solve some of today's most complex business challenges, including supporting and empowering their workforce, managing their finances and spend in an ever-changing environment, and planning for the unexpected.

Central to our purpose is a set of core values with our employees as number one along with customer service, innovation, integrity, fun, and profitability.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

WDAY · Workday Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2026

$9.6B

+13.1% YoY · 17% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $9.9B 5-yr avg $7.3B

Gross margin 98%

Operating margin 10.4% 5-yr avg 1.8%

ROIC 8% 5-yr avg 1%

Owner-earnings margin 30% 5-yr avg 26%

Free cash flow margin 30% 5-yr avg 26%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −5.8% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 21% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −4%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 22% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

25% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2026

United States75%$7.2B
International25%$2.4B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	2026’26	TTMTTMApr 2026
											Income statement
$1.6B	$2.1B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$4.3B	$5.1B	$6.2B	$7.3B	$8.4B	$9.6B	$9.9B	RevenueRevenue
13%	10%	12%	10%	10%	9%	10%	10%	10%	10%	9%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
43%	42%	43%	43%	40%	37%	36%	34%	31%	28%	28%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($353M)	($303M)	($463M)	($502M)	($249M)	($116M)	($222M)	$183M	$415M	$721M	$1.0B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−22.4%	−14.1%	−16.4%	−13.8%	−5.8%	−2.3%	−3.6%	2.5%	4.9%	7.5%	10.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($385M)	($321M)	($418M)	($481M)	($282M)	$29M	($367M)	$1.4B	$526M	$693M	$847M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	18%	31%	33%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$351M	$466M	$607M	$865M	$1.3B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.5B	$2.9B	$3.2B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$106M	$136M	$198M	$201M	$231M	$263M	$275M	$203M	$243M	$237M	$230M	DepreciationDeprec.
$257M	$173M	$174M	$285M	$315M	$258M	$454M	($851M)	$173M	$383M	$525M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$121M	$142M	$203M	—	—	—	$364M	$232M	$269M	$162M	$206M	CapexCapex
7.7%	6.6%	7.2%	—	—	—	5.9%	3.2%	3.2%	1.7%	2.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$230M	$324M	$404M	—	—	—	$1.4B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$3.0B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
14.6%	15.1%	14.3%	—	—	—	22.2%	26.4%	26.0%	29.1%	30.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$230M	$324M	$404M	—	—	—	$1.3B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$3.0B	Free cash flowFCF
14.6%	15.1%	14.3%	—	—	—	20.8%	26.4%	26.0%	29.1%	30.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$148M	$6M	$1.5B	$474M	$0	$1.2B	$0	$8M	$825M	$2.1B	$2.1B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$75M	$423M	$700M	$2.9B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-38%	-15%	-16%	-13%	-5%	-2%	-3%	2%	3%	5%	8%	ROICROIC
-30%	-20%	-21%	-19%	-9%	1%	-7%	17%	6%	9%	13%	Return on equityROE
−30%	−20%	−21%	−19%	−9%	1%	−7%	17%	6%	9%	13%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$540M	$1.1B	$639M	$1.9B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$6.1B	$7.8B	$8.0B	$5.4B	$4.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$410M	$528M	$705M	$878M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.3B	$1.6B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$27M	$21M	$29M	$58M	$76M	$55M	$154M	$78M	$108M	$142M	$116M	Accounts payablePayables
$383M	$507M	$676M	$820M	$957M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$2.2B	$1.5B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.5B	$4.0B	$2.7B	$3.1B	$4.8B	$5.2B	$8.1B	$9.9B	$10.5B	$8.4B	$6.6B	Current assetsCur. assets
$1.3B	$2.1B	$2.4B	$3.0B	$4.3B	$5.1B	$4.6B	$5.1B	$5.5B	$6.4B	$6.5B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×	1.9×	1.1×	1.0×	1.1×	1.0×	1.8×	2.0×	1.9×	1.3×	1.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$108M	$159M	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$3.5B	$5.2B	$5.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$3.3B	$4.9B	$5.5B	$6.8B	$8.7B	$10.5B	$13.5B	$16.5B	$18.0B	$18.1B	$16.1B	Total assetsAssets
—	$1.1B	$972M	$1.3B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$3.0B	Total debtDebt
—	$15M	$334M	($682M)	($1.7B)	($1.8B)	($3.1B)	($4.8B)	($5.0B)	($2.5B)	($1.4B)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-11.7×	-6.8×	-7.7×	-8.6×	-3.6×	-6.8×	-2.2×	1.6×	3.6×	6.3×	9.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.3B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$2.5B	$3.3B	$4.5B	$5.6B	$8.1B	$9.0B	$7.8B	$6.7B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
23.6%	22.3%	23.1%	23.7%	23.3%	21.4%	20.8%	19.5%	18.0%	17.0%	16.0%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
198M	208M	217M	227M	237M	254M	255M	265M	269M	268M	254M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$7.94	$10.31	$13.02	$15.97	$18.22	$20.23	$24.39	$27.36	$31.37	$35.63	$38.75	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.94	$-1.55	$-1.93	$-2.12	$-1.19	$0.11	$-1.44	$5.21	$1.95	$2.58	$3.33	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.16	$1.56	$1.86	—	—	—	$5.42	$7.23	$8.14	$10.36	$11.69	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.16	$1.56	$1.86	—	—	—	$5.07	$7.23	$8.14	$10.36	$11.69	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.61	$0.68	$0.93	—	—	—	$1.43	$0.87	$1.00	$0.60	$0.81	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.44	$7.61	$9.03	$10.95	$13.83	$17.85	$21.92	$30.47	$33.56	$29.11	$26.28	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+18.1%/yr	+14.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+27.5%/yr	+24.1%/yr (3-yr)
Capital spending / share	−0.1%/yr	−24.9%/yr (3-yr)
Book value / share	+18.2%/yr	+16.1%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Professional services-1.2%
“Professional services revenues were $719 million for fiscal 2026, compared to $728 million for fiscal 2025, a decrease of $10 million, or 1%. The decrease in professional services revenues was driven by variation in project size and mix of deployment and integration services provided as we continue to expand and leverage our service partners.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2017–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

268Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

5%low FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$2.8Bowner earningsvs.$693Mnet incomelow FY2017

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2017FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2019–FY2026cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2026 the business turned $693M of profit into $2.8B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$693M

Owner earnings$2.8B · 29% of revenue

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2019
Reported net income	$693M	$526M	$1.4B	($367M)	($418M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$237M	+$243M	+$203M	+$275M	+$198M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$1.6B	+$1.5B	+$1.4B	+$1.3B	+$652M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$383M	+$173M	−$851M	+$454M	+$174M
Cash from operations	$2.9B	$2.5B	$2.1B	$1.7B	$607M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$162M	−$269M	−$232M	−$275M	−$203M
Owner earnings	$2.8B	$2.2B	$1.9B	$1.4B	$404M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$89M	—
Free cash flow	$2.8B	$2.2B	$1.9B	$1.3B	$404M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	29%	26%	26%	22%	14%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $1.6B), owner earnings is nearer $1.2B.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 6.3×

Comfortable

Operating income $721M ÷ interest expense $114M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$2.5B

Net cash

Cash $1.5B + ST investments $3.9B − debt $3.0B

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $2.5B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -356d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 89 + DIO 0 − DPO 445 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -5%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -38%–5%; 5% latest = NOPAT $495M ÷ invested capital $9.3B

Industry peers: median 11%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 5% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 22%

High through the cycle

7-yr median margin, range 14%–29%; latest $2.8B = operating cash $2.9B − maintenance capex $162M

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 29% of revenue this year, a 22% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $1.6B of SBC) leaves $1.2B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 4.24×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $2.9B ÷ net income $693M

In the filing’s words The filing leans on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings, but the GAAP profit is itself cash-backed — the adjustments are not papering over a cash shortfall here.

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 104%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $2.9B ÷ Owner Earnings $2.8B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $2.8B of Owner Earnings, $2.9B (104%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $2.9B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $1.6B stock comp, the real buyback was about $1.3B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.68×

Harvesting

Capex $162M ÷ depreciation $237M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $9.6B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.32×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Near

Debt ≤ working capital · $3.0B vs $2.1B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 6 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $3.41/share (latest year $2.73), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $30.74/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2017–2026

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 4 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 9 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −18% → 5% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −18% early to 5% lately, median −6% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 9%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +28%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 28% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −22.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +3.4%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“We may also face greater competition from non-specialist solutions relying on generic large language models ("LLMs"), generative AI, and general-purpose agents to address a broad range of business needs.”

AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Apr 30, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$6.6B

Cash & short-term investments$4.4B
Receivables$1.6B
Other current assets$664M

Current liabilities$6.5B

Debt due within a year$998M
Accounts payable$116M
Other current liabilities$5.4B

Current ratio1.01×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.01×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.67×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$57Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$998M due · $4.4B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Apr 30, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+13.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.0× → 1.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.8B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.8B$817M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.8B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$4.4Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'27$0

'28$1.0B

'29$0

'30$750M

'31$0

later$1.3B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2031, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$0the first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.0Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.0Bin 2028the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$3.0Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Jan 31, 2026 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$146M

'27$155M

'28$123M

'29$86M

'30$65M

later$490M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$146Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.1Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$834Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$3.0B

Lease obligations (present value)$834M

Total fixed claims on the business$3.8B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.8B, of which the leases are 22%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Jan 31, 2026 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2017–2026

Over the record, the business generated $10.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

Reinvested$1.5B · 14%
Buybacks$4.1B · 39%
Retained (debt / cash)$5.0B · 47%

Returned to owners$4.1B
44% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $4.1B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $3.8B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $4.1B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count28.3%
The diluted count rose from 198M to 254M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$5.5B31% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity67%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$6.2Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.5B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$1.6B
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 17% of revenue, equal to 226% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Workday Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2017–2026.

1 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?28.3%
Diluted shares grew 28.3% over 2017–2026, even as the company spent $4.1B on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2026

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Acquisitions as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, IT Services & Consulting

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
ADPAutomatic Data Processing Inc.	$20.6B	43%	21.3%	46%	19%
DXCDXC Technology Company Common Stock	$12.6B	—	8.0%	12%	8%
SHOPShopify Inc.	$11.6B	49%	-1.3%	-0%	15%
WDAYWorkday Inc.	$9.6B	99%	-4.7%	-4%	22%
CACICACI International Inc.	$8.6B	7%	8.0%	9%	6%
EAElectronic Arts	$7.5B	75%	20.1%	19%	29%
SAICScience Applications International Corporation	$7.3B	11%	6.1%	11%	6%
TOSTToast Inc.	$6.2B	19%	-13.4%	-38%	-1%
Group median	—	43%	7.0%	10%	12%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Workday Inc. has delivered.

Workday Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Workday Inc. earns about $2.1B on its 22.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 29.1% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($2.1B) Net of stock comp (−$1.6B) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($3.0B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’19→’26+16%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’26+28%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’26)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $3.0B on 254M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $1.4B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($206M) runs well above depreciation ($230M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $3.0B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh WDAY against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Workday Inc. (WDAY), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/WDAY, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← WD its page in the Manual WDC →

Industry order: ← VRSN the IT Services & Consulting chapter WIT →