An assessment records what a business believes about itself. A validation tests whether the documents agree.
Two instruments, run in sequence. The first establishes the readiness picture and produces a document checklist. The second checks that picture against the records, and reports where the two diverge.
The divergence is the product. Everything a buyer's advisor will raise during diligence is either in the documents or absent from them, and both are knowable in advance.
Structured input across eight domains, scored and weighted, producing a domain-level readiness picture and a document checklist specific to the business — its industry, entity type, and the gaps the responses surface.
Scoring runs on a readiness scale. Higher is better prepared. Each domain carries its own score, its own findings, and its own contribution to the overall picture, so a business that is strong financially and weak operationally reads as exactly that rather than averaging into a number that describes neither.
The output is not a grade. It is a work list, ordered by what a buyer will weigh most heavily.
The assessment is then tested against the documents.
Financial reconciliation. Tax returns against the profit and loss statement, and both against bank deposits. Where they disagree, the disagreement is documented rather than resolved in the seller's favor.
Add-back schedule. Every claimed add-back listed individually with its documentation status recorded — documented, partially documented, or unsupported. A buyer's quality of earnings provider will build this schedule regardless. The only question is whether the seller sees it first.
Narrative verification. Payroll registers against the headcount narrative. The customer list against the concentration claim. Contracts against what the business says its contracts contain, including assignment and change-of-control provisions.
Ownership and transfer. Licenses and credentials — held by the entity or by a person. Systems, data, and customer records — owned or licensed, transferable or not.
Where the assessment and the documents agree, that is a defensible position. Where they diverge, that divergence has a price, and it will be paid either in preparation now or in the negotiation later.
Running the validation alone would produce findings without context. Running the assessment alone produces a picture with no evidence behind it.
Together they do what the buy-side work does from the other direction: collect what people say and what the documents show independently, then compare them. Agreement is a confirmed fact. Disagreement is a finding.
An owner who has seen both knows precisely which claims survive contact with the record and which do not. That is the position from which a price is held.
A written assessment covering all eight domains with scores, findings, and the evidence behind each. A reconciliation report identifying every point where the documents and the narrative diverge. A completed add-back schedule with documentation status per line. A remediation list, sequenced by what a buyer weighs most heavily and by what can realistically be addressed in the time available.
Where a finding cannot be fixed, that is stated, along with what it will cost in price or in terms — because a known and priced issue is a negotiating position, while an unknown one is a surprise that arrives after the letter of intent.
The assessment is useful at any stage, including early, when the answer is simply how far the business is from ready.
The validation is most useful eighteen to thirty-six months out. That is enough time to reconstruct records, document processes, formalize a second-in-command, renegotiate a contract, or transfer a license — none of which can be done during exclusivity.
Under LOI, the engagement changes character. The question stops being what to fix and becomes what to disclose and how to hold a price against findings the other side is about to raise.
Twelve exit readiness assessments are published in full, across a range of industries and readiness levels.
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