How will a hired professional begin the due diligence process?
First, the professional you hire will gather information about the business for sale and its industry. We start with a general list of procedures and customize this process to fit the business, always asking the question: What is important to the deal? That varies from business to business. Where revenue may be critical to one deal, expenses may be more important to another. We determine what items require more investigation — where do we need to dig deeper so you will understand the business better once you own it? Due diligence often gets started after-hours or on weekends because many company owners do not reveal to employees that the business is for sale. The due diligence process also requires working with the seller to determine the following: Who manages accounting at the business, is quality financial reporting in place and what customers are important to retaining sales levels? Other questions we ask include: Has inventory been consistently valued? What is included in accounts
