How we check

What the Exit Readiness Report reads, what it compares, what its statuses mean, and what it doesn’t do.

Exit Readiness Report

What we read

Your filed accounts. One recent year is enough to start. If your company filed it digitally at Companies House we can read it there; if it was filed as a PDF, you add a copy. Two or three years, and your monthly management accounts if you have them, make the report more useful.

Anything else you upload to your private workspace: spreadsheets, PDFs, contracts, customer lists. Your accountant can add documents with you.

The accounts you filed at Companies House, which anyone can see and a buyer will read first.

The add-backs you list, with the evidence you attach to each one, and your answers to the free readiness check if you saved them.

How figures are checked against each other

Each figure is read from a cell in a spreadsheet or a page in a PDF, and we keep where it came from. In the report, every figure links to that place.

Where the same figure appears in more than one place (your filed accounts, your management accounts, Companies House), we compare them, year by year, and say whether they agree.

From those figures we build the bridge from the profit in your accounts to the adjusted profit, as you claim it and as a buyer is likely to accept it on today’s evidence.

The checks are fixed rules, the same for every business. No figure is estimated, and nothing is filled in where a document is missing.

What each figure check means

Agree: The places that give this figure agree, allowing for rounding.
Small difference: They differ by more than rounding but by less than 1 in 100. A buyer’s accountant will still ask why.
Don’t agree: They differ by more than that. Until it is explained, a buyer won’t know which figure to work from.
One source only: Only one document gives this figure, so there is nothing to check it against.
Can’t be compared: The figures are stated in a way that can’t be put side by side, so they weren’t compared.

What each area’s status means

Each area of the business (your figures, add-backs, customers, dependence on you, cash and working capital, documents) gets one of three statuses. There is no overall score.

Ready: Nothing we found in your documents that a buyer is likely to question.
Needs work: Something to prepare for, or not enough in your documents for us to check the area. An area is never Ready just because something is missing.
A buyer will push back: Something a buyer is likely to raise early and use in the negotiation, unless it is fixed or explained first.

What each add-back status means

An add-back is a cost in your accounts that a new owner wouldn’t have. Each one you list gets one of three statuses. None of them means a buyer has accepted it: that is the buyer’s decision.

Supported: A kind of cost buyers usually recognise, with a document in your workspace that shows it.
Needs evidence: It may stand, but there is no document showing it yet, or a claimed market rate has nothing to compare it with.
Likely to be challenged: A kind of cost buyers usually strike out, or one called one-off that comes back every year.

What we don’t do

This is not a valuation. The report doesn’t say what your business is worth or what a buyer might pay.

This is not an audit. We compare your documents with each other and with Companies House. We don’t check them against your bank records or your books.

No one may rely on the report. It is for you, to help you prepare. It isn’t addressed to a buyer, a lender or anyone else.

It isn’t tax, legal or financial advice. For those, speak to your accountant or solicitor.

A named person signs it off

Before you receive the report, a named member of the teasr team reviews it against your documents and signs it off. We aim to do that within three working days.

Your documents stay private

You upload to a private workspace that only you, and anyone you invite such as your accountant, can see.

Nothing in it is shown to advisers or buyers.

A re-run, included

Once you’ve made the changes, run the report again within six months, at no extra cost. The new report shows what has changed since the last one.