Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Aug 11, 2026
Waystar Holding Corp. (WAY)
A forensic read on Waystar Holding Corp. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
3.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
33.8
P / E (ttm)
2.9%
ROE
$4.8B
Market cap
16.5%
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.
Waystar Holding Corp. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+24.6%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +24.6% 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 receivables up +22% against revenue +17%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 4% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
2.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.9% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+23.3%/yr
FY2024–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +23% over the last 1 year to FY2025 (+23.3%/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 ~23.3% 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 FY2024 has been diluted ~19%.
stopped
FY2024→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $844,000 of buybacks + dividends in FY2024, but ~$0 in FY2025. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
4% of rev
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.10B
Revenue Growth YoY+16.5%
Net Margin10.2%
Free Cash Flow$283.2M
Return on Equity2.9%
Debt / Equity0.38x
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 Waystar Holding Corp.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 4% of revenue and 15% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.23 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 23.3% a year, small enough that totals and per-share results tell the same story.