Forensic Analysis · Professional & Commercial Services · as of Aug 10, 2026
Cbiz, Inc. (CBZ)
A forensic read on Cbiz, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
2.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
19.1
P / E (ttm)
6.6%
ROE
$3.0B
Market cap
52.1%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Cbiz, Inc. earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.5, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
4.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 9% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+6.5%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +21% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+6.5%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~6.5% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~17%.
0.9% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.9% of revenue and 15% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.41 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 6.9% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
91% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $160M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 91% of free cash flow. Right at the limit of what free cash flow covers — little room before it's funded by debt or the balance sheet. That ratio has actually been EASING, not tightening further — down from ~104% of free cash flow a few years back. Counting the $26M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 106%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.76B
Revenue Growth YoY+52.1%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+25.0%
Net Margin4.2%
Free Cash Flow$175.5M
Return on Equity6.6%
Debt / Equity0.83x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Cbiz, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?