Diligence Analysis
The listing says $400K. What does the tax return say?
Upload the deal's documents. We rebuild the earnings from the source, test every add-back, and cite every figure. It takes minutes.
Verified SDE
DisputedRecomputed from the 2023 tax return
01 — What you upload
Whatever the broker has given you.
PDF, image or spreadsheet. More documents means more we can cross-check. A report built on the offering memo alone is a weaker report, and it says so.
Profit & loss
Three years if you can get them. Each year is read on its own, then judged as a trend.
Tax return
What the seller filed with the IRS. This is what the P&L gets measured against.
Offering memo / CIM
The seller's own story. Useful, and the thing the other two most often contradict.
Documents
Drop the deal's files
- 2023_tax_return.pdf
- P&L_2021-2023.pdf
- offering_memo.pdf
02 — What the engine does
Five steps, and none of them guess.
- 01
Classify
We identify each document and the years it covers, so a 2021 P&L never meets a 2023 return.
- 02
Extract
Figures are pulled page by page. Each citation travels with its number, back to the source line.
- 03
Reconcile
The P&L against the tax return, the offering memo against both. Disagreements become findings, not averages.
- 04
Recompute SDE
Earnings are rebuilt from what the documents support. Every claimed add-back is accepted, questioned or rejected.
- 05
Score and conclude
A Scout Score on the verified earnings, the risks that matter, and the diligence plan. Premium adds a reasoned verdict.
Verified SDE
Earnings disputedRecomputed from the 2023 tax return
Recommendation
Pursue with conditionsA real business — at $310K, not $400K. Reprice before you sign.
- Listing revenue $120K above the tax return
- 16 years, ~40% recurring maintenance revenue
03 — What you get
A report that opens with the answer.
Not forty pages you have to mine. The verdict and the verified number come first. The evidence sits underneath, in the order you'd want to challenge it.
A real business — at $310K, not $400K. Reprice before you sign.
Scout Score computed on the verified earnings, not the listed ones
As listed
$400K
Offering memo, p.4
As verified
$310K
2023 Form 1120-S, line 21
The Adjustment
As listed versus as verified, with every step between the two figures.
Earnings quality
How much of the profit is durable, and how much depends on the current owner.
Add-backsPremium
Each claimed add-back accepted, questioned or rejected, with the reasoning.
EconomicsPremium
The multiple, debt service and payback against the verified earnings.
Risk profile
What could go wrong, ranked. And what is genuinely a strength.
Diligence plan
The questions to put to the seller, and the documents still missing.
Read a whole one.
A complete Diligence Analysis on a fictional deal. Rendered by the same component that renders yours, not a screenshot.
05 — Your documents
They're yours. We don't train on them.
Private to you
Visible only to you and anyone you explicitly share a deal with.
Encrypted
In transit and at rest, from the moment you upload.
Never used to train AI models
Your deal's documents train nothing. Not our models, not anyone's.
Deletable any time
Remove a document, or a whole deal, whenever you want.
More detail in our Security and Privacy Policy pages.
06 — What it costs
Depth is the paid axis, not access.
Free runs one complete verification: the whole report, on a real deal. Standard verifies deals as you find them. Premium adds full add-back scrutiny, cross-document reconciliation, and a reasoned verdict.
Find out what the numbers really say.
Your first deal verification is free. The full report, on a deal you're actually looking at.
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