The article discusses the theoretical foundations of a new approach to the financial analysis of the enterprise. This new approach is needed, the author says, because classical financial analysis fails to precisely diagnose intellectual capital resources controlled by knowledge­‑based enterprises. All disciplines of finance are currently facing the challenge of expanding their instruments to include new tools for recording, presenting and interpreting economic processes characteristic of knowledge resources (intellectual capital), the author says. The article discusses the subject and presents the main assumptions of financial accounting for competence assets and intellectual capital. The author lists the most important tools of this new branch of accounting: “knowledge­‑based balance sheets” and “books of competencies.” The article presents the methodology for a preliminary analysis of knowledge­‑based balance sheets, which involves an examination of their fundamental structure and dynamics. The author proposes a “basic indicator of post­‑industrial financial analysis” called “return on knowledge” (ROK). He also defines the phenomenon of intellectual leverage and attempts to quantify it. According to Niemczyk, the available range of classical financial analysis tools should be expanded to include “the structure of competence assets (intellectual capital), the nominal growth of competence assets (intellectual capital), the real growth of competence assets (intellectual capital), the self­‑production of intellectual capital, return on knowledge, the degree of intellectual leverage, the profitability of competence assets, and the cost effectiveness of competence assets.”