Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Aug 11, 2026
Pdf Solutions Inc (PDFS)
A forensic read on Pdf Solutions Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
13.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
292.7
P / E (ttm)
-0.2%
ROE
$2.0B
Market cap
22.0%
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.
Pdf Solutions Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 13.4, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+62.2%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +62.2% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by PP&E up +68% against revenue +22% and receivables up +13% against revenue +22%. This is the third straight fiscal year of building accruals — a multi-year streak is a materially stronger tell than a single year's move. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 11% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
1.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 1.2% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+1.8%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.8%/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 ~1.8% 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 ~5%.
FCF ($9M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $244,000 to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($9M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $24M — 1% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$219.0M
Revenue Growth YoY+22.0%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+13.8%
Net Margin-0.3%
Free Cash Flow-$8.6M
Return on Equity-0.2%
Debt / Equity0.25x
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 Pdf Solutions Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?