Let me describe two actual former clients at polar opposite sides of one spectrum:
Client A runs a professional services firm (in addition to a few side projects), and has several entities that share a common cost center. Because of this added level of complexity, he consolidates financials in an Excel spreadsheet. Not ideal, but not a deal breaker. Because of his background with accounting, he feels confident dAvoid costly surprises in due diligence when selling your business. Learn how financial readiness, clean data, and a strong narrative can secure higher valuations and smoother transactions doing the numbers “the manual way”. Client A hires Roadmap Advisors to sell his proserv business. We are provided with monthly financials going back 5 full years, in Excel. We instantly notice that the P&L and balance sheet are formatted differently than what we’re used to seeing from Quickbooks or Netsuite. We see some hard coded formulas that don’t make a ton of sense. Client A insists that these are the right numbers, and we don’t need to see the P&Ls of his side projects or the shared cost center to sell the main business. We move on.
Client B runs an online subscription service. When asked for financials, we’re given an accountants’ copy of their full Quickbooks file, along with a “raw data” run from the website plugin that manages the subscriptions. We have every single transaction, and the CFO apologized that they have not yet completed their migration to a SaaS “data lake” tool, but provided a mockup of the KPI dashboard that is forthcoming.
I’m sure once framed this way, you can guess what happened. Client A’s deal blew up in diligence. There was an Excel error that threw off all financials for all years historically, and they overstated margins by a very significant amount. Once it was found, the buyer walked. Client B sold to a top tier PE firm for nine figures, after gliding through due diligence done by a top 10 accounting firm.
You’ve worked hard to build your business. Don’t be Client A. Don’t let avoidable issues in due diligence cost you. When it’s time to sell, every number will be scrutinized. A surprise in the quality of earnings (QoE) review, no matter how small, can create doubt, slow the process, or reduce your valuation. By getting ahead of potential red flags and ensuring your financials are buyer-ready, you protect the value you’ve spent years creating. Partnering with an investment bank early in the process helps ensure you present your business with clean numbers, clear narratives, and no surprises.
Switch to Accrual Accounting
Most small businesses operate on a cash basis, but buyers and quality of earnings (QoE) providers expect financials to reflect accrual accounting. Accrual accounting offers a more accurate picture of financial performance by aligning revenue and expenses with the periods in which they are earned or incurred—not when cash changes hands. This matters because timing differences under cash accounting can obscure true profitability, overstate margins, or misrepresent working capital needs. Switching to accrual accounting ensures your numbers tell the full story, meet GAAP standards, and hold up to buyer scrutiny.
Own the Financial Narrative
Buyers want more than a spreadsheet. They want to understand the business behind the numbers. Start by establishing a clear narrative that explains what’s driving key financial outcomes. If margins have improved, can you articulate why? If churn is low, what’s the strategy behind retention? When founders and CFOs speak to numbers with fluency and clarity, buyers gain confidence not only in past performance but also in future scalability.
Pressure-Test Your Assumptions
Before sharing budgets or financial projections, take the buyer’s perspective. Which assumptions will they challenge? Should the one-time expenses you identified and used to adjust EBITDA really one-time? Are customer cohorts segmented in a way that reveals trends rather than obscures them? Roadmap’s pre-diligence process includes a full review of historical adjustments, EBITDA assumptions, and working capital to ensure sellers are fully prepared and positioned to withstand scrutiny.
Let the Data Room Speak for You
The sellers that are generally most prepared for a transaction are ones that plan for the sale years in advance, which includes organizing internal documents in the way most data rooms are. An organized data room does more than neatly store documents. It guides the buyer’s understanding of the business and shows the company operates with discipline, all while reducing the need for additional diligence questions.
Key elements of a strong data room include:
- KPI dashboards that link operational drivers to financial outcomes
- Clean, labeled folders with intuitive structure and consistent naming conventions
- Summaries and reconciliations that bridge internal reporting to official financials
- Supporting contracts and schedules for revenue, costs, and key metrics
- Version control to ensure accuracy and prevent duplication or confusion
By making analysis seamless, you reduce friction, increase engagement, and shorten deal timelines while projecting operational discipline and readiness.
Financial Confidence Drives Value
Buyers notice when sellers are in command of their numbers. The more clarity, consistency, and accuracy your team brings to diligence, the more credible your valuation becomes. Disorganization or inaccurate explanations, on the other hand, erode trust and lead to decreased valuations or the buyers terminating the transaction.
Work with Roadmap Advisors for more information.