Pipeline & Deal Room

Everything about the deal, in one room.

Eight stages from first contact to close. A checklist for the stage you're in, and the documents, analysis and notes that go with it.

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Cedar Lane Heating & Air

  • Contacted
  • NDA
  • Due DiligenceYou are here
  • LOI

3 documents · checklist 2/5 · analysis ready

01 — The pipeline

Eight stages, and you always know which one you're in.

Each step asks something different of you. Naming the stages means a deal can't quietly stall between two of them. That includes the two ways a deal ends, Closed and Passed.

  1. WatchingOn your radar. No contact yet — you're deciding whether it's worth one.
  2. ContactedYou've reached the broker or the seller and asked your first questions.
  3. NDASigned. The real documents start arriving, and verification becomes possible.
  4. LOITerms on paper. Usually where exclusivity — and a clock — begins.
  5. Due DiligenceVerify everything you were told, before the money is committed.
  6. Purchase AgreementLawyers, financing, and the conditions that have to be met to close.
  7. ClosedIt's yours.
  8. PassedThe other way a deal ends — recorded, with your notes on why, so you don't reconsider the same deal twice.

02 — Checklists

A checklist for the stage you're actually in.

Move a deal into a new stage and we write that stage's checklist for that specific deal. Not a generic template. Not the same list you got two stages ago.

  • Add your own items. The generated list is a starting point. Whatever you want verified about this business goes on it too.
  • Your ticks survive. A checklist is written at most once per deal per stage. Moving backward and forward never regenerates it or clears what you've done.
  • Due dates where they matter. The items with a clock on them can carry one: an LOI expiry, a financing contingency.

Due Diligence checklist

Generated for this stage
  • Reconcile three years of P&L against the filed returns
  • Confirm the owner's add-backs with supporting invoices
  • Verify the technician roster and who holds the licences
  • Review the top 10 maintenance contracts and their renewal dates
  • Walk the premises and check the equipment conditionYours

Add your own item

03 — The deal room

Five tabs, one deal, one place.

Everything a deal accumulates lives on the deal. Not in a folder, a thread and a spreadsheet that only agree by accident.

The Cedar Lane Heating & Air deal room, with the Documents tab open beside Overview, Diligence Analysis, Checklist and Notes. Three uploaded files are listed — an offering memo, a 2023 tax return and a 2023 P&L — each classified by type, above a Run analysis button.

A deal room with its documents attached. Figures and business are fictional.

  • OverviewThe listing, the figures, the Scout Score, the stage, and how to reach the seller.
  • DocumentsThe P&L, the returns, the offering memo. Uploaded once, attached to the deal, read without downloading.
  • Diligence AnalysisThe verification report on this deal's documents. Re-run it when new ones arrive.
  • ChecklistThe current stage's generated list, plus everything you've added yourself.
  • NotesWhat the broker said on the phone. The thing that felt off. Dated, and where you'll look for it.

04 — Negotiation

Model the offer before you make it.

The Deal Calculator uses the numbers you verified, not the ones the listing claimed. The price you land on is one you can actually service.

  • Change the terms, watch the outcome. Price, down payment, a seller note, the salary a new owner has to pay themselves. Each one moves cash to close and debt service in front of you.
  • The SBA test is in there. Your equity injection is checked against the minimum. You find out a structure doesn't qualify now, not at the bank.
  • Then generate the LOI. The letter comes out of the deal you've been working: the verified figures, the terms you modelled. Not a blank template you re-key everything into.

Terms

Asking price$1,150,000
Your offer$980,000
Down payment15%
Seller note$100,000
New-owner salary$85,000

Outcome

Cash to close$172K
Equity injection12.4%
Annual debt service$104K
Cash flow after debt$121K
Score at this price68

Letter of Intent — drafted from this deal

05 — Working with your advisor

Bring in the people you trust.

An accountant, a broker, an advisory firm. Share a deal and they see the same report and the same figures you do, not a forwarded PDF that's a week old. You choose which deals, and you can end the connection whenever you want.

Shared with Whitfield & Co.

Your accountant

  • The verified figures
  • The diligence report
  • The documents you uploaded

One deal, not your whole pipeline — and you can end the connection whenever you want.

Keep reading

Deal Sourcing

How the marketplaces get searched against your buyer profile, and what Deal Spotlight actually does.

Diligence Analysis

SDE rebuilt from the seller's own documents, every add-back tested, every figure cited to its source.

Run the deal, not a spreadsheet about the deal.

Pipeline tracking and the Deal Room are on the free plan, from the first business you're watching.

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