Get it funded. Get it under control. Get it worth more.
One buyer, met at three moments. Before the close, when the lender needs a clean package and the seller's bookkeeper cannot produce one. In the first hundred days, when the wire has hit and the bank wants a statement by the thirtieth. And every month after, when the only reason for doing this was to sell it for more than you paid. Three offers, in that order.
What the first year actually looks like
The relationship with most lenders ends at funding, which is exactly when the buyer's real problems start.
| Thirty to ninety days before close | A signed letter of intent and a clock. The lender wants three years of returns, interims and a personal financial statement, and the seller's bookkeeper cannot produce clean numbers. |
|---|---|
| Closing day through day ninety | The seller leaves. The bookkeeper has done it her way for eleven years. The bank wants a statement and a covenant certificate you have never seen, and it is the eighteenth and you do not know whether last month made money. |
| Month four onward | The debt payment is permanent. The phone goes unanswered at lunch, nobody follows up on quotes, and the company has eleven reviews. |
| For the lender and the broker | Packages arrive disorganized, documents trickle in, and the new rules put more diligence on every acquisition file. |
Sold to the same buyer, three times, in order
- 01
Automation for SBA lenders and brokers
Packages that arrive organized and files that move.
- Package assembly with a checklist per lender requirement and a document chase that escalates
- Statement-to-spread with a citation on every field and tie-outs the analyst validates
- Readiness preparation against the lender's current requirements. Where an independent quality-of-earnings report is required, the lender engages it; we never prepare it
- 02
The 100-day finance cleanup after the deal
Control of the numbers before the first lender report is due.
- Clean books and a chart of accounts you can read, and a close that finishes in a week
- A one-page number sheet every Monday: revenue, margin, cash, receivables, payables, covenant position
- The lender reporting pack and covenant tests against the actual credit agreement, and a rolling thirteen-week cash forecast. A licensed accountant carries the close
- 03
Ongoing marketing and AI automation
Revenue, cash flow and valuation, measured in your own statements.
- Missed-call recovery, follow-up sequences, review generation, list reactivation and AI reception for the operating business
- Monthly finance operations: close oversight, the number sheet, lender reporting, the cash forecast
- The earnings story that supports an exit, counted only on durable, attributable earnings. Never a promised multiple
The same core, cut for a buyer with a clock
| Who is in the room | A first-time buyer with a signed letter of intent and a clock. |
|---|---|
| Demo documents | Seller financials, interim statements, the loan package checklist. |
| The automation scenario | Package assembly and readiness for the lender's requirements. |
| The guardrail | Readiness preparation only. The independent quality-of-earnings report is the lender's to engage. |
| The forbidden claim | Any assurance that a deal will fund. |
| The seasonal peak | The run-up to a rule change, built before the effective date. |
Formats, weeks and labs are on the training page.
Where we place the debt through our affiliated commercial lending brokerage and also advise the buyer, the two are separate engagement letters with written disclosure to the buyer and the lender. Deliverables are management's representations. We never present our own work as the independent report on a deal we brokered, and we take no brokerage fee on that client's next loan while advising them.
- The independent quality-of-earnings report: engaged by the lender, never by us
- Credit decisions: the lender's, always
- A licensed accountant on the engagement letter before any close is promised
- No promise of funding, valuation or any loan outcome
- SOP 50 10 8.1
- The SBA's SOP 50 10 8.1 takes effect October 1, 2026. On initial acquisitions and business expansions with a purchase price of three million dollars or more, the lender must obtain a quality of earnings report from an independent financial professional, and debt service coverage must be satisfied from the last one or two fiscal year-end statements rather than from projections. Our readiness work prepares the buyer's numbers for that test; it does not replace the independent report. SBA Information Notice 5000-880695
- Loan limits
- The cumulative 7(a) and 504 loan limit doubled effective July 4, 2026. U.S. Small Business Administration
Start with a workflow review
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