Business Report

Identify one or several businesses that are of interest to you (currency MUST be in US dollars). There are a few business sales websites that you can look at, but we recommend starting with the website BizBuySell.com, which is one of the easiest and largest platforms to begin your journey. This website consists of thousands of businesses for sale, primarily in the United States. Roughly ½ of the listings provide most, if not all, of the information needed for us to do an evaluation.

If the business listing provides a 1) Asking (List) Price, and 2) “Cash Flow”, or “Seller Discretionary Earnings (SDE)”, the expanded detail of the BizBuySell listings should provide the necessary information needed to complete our analysis. (It is very important to remember that when you see the term “Seller Discretionary Earnings”, this is defined as the cash that the SELLER has been able to keep while operating the business. However, the buyer’s circumstances will most certainly be different, and should not apply that value to his/her situation).

While the data on a business provided on BizBuySell (or any other website) may not be a final, accurate accounting value, we have found that it should be generally in the “ball park”, and good enough for you to feel confident in the results. Remember, the purpose of our evaluation is to help focus you in the right direction, so accounting accuracy “to the penny” is not necessary at this point. Once you identify a business to pursue, you will then want the greater level of accuracy. To get more detailed information, most brokers will require you to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), and then they will send you the documents.

If you already have a business identified to be evaluated that is not listed on a website, you will need to make sure that you provide us with the correct value on the form that is the equivalent of the “Seller Discretionary Earnings”. This may also be identified as “Adjusted Net Income”. Most sellers will have their own accountants, so getting that data should be available to you upon request. We will still need the rest of the required information on the data entry form.