Articles by Camille Laurent

Finance writer · View profile

8/1/2025 · 3 min read

Sales Tax vs VAT: The Difference

Both tax what you buy, but collect it differently. Here's how US sales tax and VAT work, and what each means for the price you actually pay.

7/25/2025 · 3 min read

What Is CAGR (and How to Use It)?

CAGR turns an investment's whole journey into one steady yearly rate. Here's what it means, the formula, why it's useful for comparing, and what it hides.

7/23/2025 · 14 min read

Return Rate: The Number That Decides Whether Your Ecommerce Works

A returned order is not a cancelled sale, it is a sale that cost you money. Here is the return rate at which returns eat the entire contribution of the orders that stayed sold, for three product profiles and five margin levels — plus what bracketing does to your order count.

7/18/2025 · 13 min read

Bounce Rate Is Not What Most People Think It Is

A bounce was never a measure of dissatisfaction — it was a session that sent one hit. Google Analytics 4 replaced the definition entirely, and the new one is a configurable timer. Here is the same thousand sessions read five ways.

7/17/2025 · 12 min read

ARPU and the Averages That Hide Your Business

Average revenue per user is a mean over a distribution with no middle, divided by a denominator nobody defines. Here is the same month of revenue read five ways, and two opposite businesses landing on exactly the same ARPU.

7/16/2025 · 11 min read

Interest Coverage and the Ratios a Lender Actually Tests

A loan agreement's covenants are the ratios that can put a solvent, profitable company into default. Interest coverage, times interest earned and DSCR are not three measures — and the one that adds principal repayment is the one that bites.

7/16/2025 · 14 min read

Process Capability: Cp, Cpk and What Six Sigma Actually Claims

Cp compares the spec width to the process spread; Cpk penalises being off-centre. A process can have an excellent Cp and still make scrap — here is the case, with defect rates computed from the normal distribution rather than read off a table.

7/15/2025 · 11 min read

Employee Turnover: What It Costs and How to Count It

The turnover rate is an argument about the denominator, and the same year of data gives anything from 11.4% to 16.5%. Then the cost — built from vacancy, recruitment, onboarding and the ramp, not from a quoted multiple of salary.

7/15/2025 · 11 min read

MRR and the Arithmetic of Recurring Revenue

Monthly recurring revenue is a normalised run rate, not revenue earned. Normalise it wrong and every downstream number is wrong. Here is the movement analysis that explains the figure, and why net revenue retention decides whether growth compounds.

7/14/2025 · 12 min read

Takt Time, Cycle Time and Lead Time Are Three Different Clocks

Takt is demand, cycle time is capability, lead time is what the customer experiences. Confusing them is the most common failure in a first improvement project — and Little's Law is the bridge from one to the next.

7/11/2025 · 11 min read

GMROI: the Inventory Number That Outranks Margin

Gross margin return on inventory investment divides gross margin by the cash tied up in stock. It exists because margin alone ranks products wrongly: a 60% margin turning twice a year loses to a 25% margin turning twelve times.

7/10/2025 · 13 min read

Contribution Margin, and the Break-Even That Actually Matters

Gross margin nets off cost of goods sold; contribution margin nets off only the costs that vary with the unit. The gap decides your break-even, your operating leverage, and how much extra volume a price cut really needs.

7/10/2025 · 11 min read

What an Ecommerce Order Actually Earns You

Between the price on the product page and the money in the bank sit seven deductions, one of which is charged per order rather than per euro. Walk one order down the ladder, then compute the return rate at which the whole thing goes negative.

6/26/2025 · 17 min read

Paying Off a Loan Early: What Actually Changes

An overpayment earns exactly the loan's rate, risk-free and after tax. On $200,000 at 5.00 percent over 25 years, $20,000 paid at the start saves $42,092 of interest; the same sum at year 16 saves $11,088; applied to the payment instead of the term it saves only $15,075.

6/25/2025 · 13 min read

Price Return, Total Return and Yield Are Three Different Numbers

The index quoted in the news is almost always a price index. At 5 percent price growth and a 2.5 percent reinvested yield, 30 years turn $10,000 into $43,219 on price and $90,656 on total return — the price measure misses 58.8 percent of the gain.

6/24/2025 · 15 min read

Tax-Equivalent Yield: Comparing a Tax-Free Bond With a Taxable One

Taxable-equivalent yield = tax-free yield ÷ (1 − marginal rate). A 3.00 percent tax-free yield is worth 3.85 percent at a 22 percent marginal rate and 5.07 percent at 40.8 percent. The trap is that it is the marginal rate, surtaxes and social levies included — leaving them out costs 0.85 points of yield.

6/5/2025 · 14 min read

Annuities: What You Are Actually Buying

An annuity's price is a present value over a probability-weighted term. On a stated mortality at 4 percent, $100,000 at 65 buys $7,492 a year — 4.00 points of interest, 1.78 of returned capital and 1.71 of mortality credit.

6/4/2025 · 12 min read

Dividend Reinvestment: What Actually Drives the Difference

Reinvesting a 3 percent yield for 30 years turns 100 shares into 242.7 and multiplies the final position by exactly that factor: $32,434 becomes $78,726. Tax at 30 percent on each dividend costs $18,223 of it — nearly two and a half times the tax actually paid.

6/3/2025 · 11 min read

Compounding Frequency, and Where Continuous Compounding Comes From

(1 + r/n)^n rises with n but converges on e^r. At 6 percent, monthly and continuous compounding differ by $1.59 on $10,000 over a year. At 24 percent the same gap is $30.07, and over thirty years it is 7.4 percent of the balance.

5/28/2025 · 14 min read

Cost per Lead, and the Funnel Arithmetic Behind It

CPL is spend divided by leads, and alone it means almost nothing, because a lead is whatever you decided to call one. Worked here: a channel with twice the CPL producing half the CAC, and the redefinition that moves CPL fivefold without moving CAC at all.

5/27/2025 · 13 min read