Business sale readiness: an evidence checklist

Create a working list with an owner and a date.

Start with the decision you need to make: sell now, prepare for a later sale or assess another succession option. Use a private working list with four columns: evidence available, gap, person responsible and target date. Review progress against actual documents rather than a percentage score.

BDC recommends preparation and appropriate advisers before a sale. The checklist below is an editorial preparation aid, not a BDC assessment, certification or promise of readiness.

Make the numbers traceable.

Gather annual financial statements and a consistent monthly management series. Ask your accountant to explain changes in accounting treatment, unusual periods, related-party transactions and differences between management and year-end results.

Add aged receivables, aged inventory, payables, debt and lease commitments. Identify customer deposits and work still to be delivered. Keep proposed earnings adjustments separately, with evidence and replacement costs; do not mix an optimistic forecast into historical results.

• Prepare the earnings adjustment schedule

Show what continues without the owner.

List the owner's weekly responsibilities: pricing, sales, approvals, technical delivery, staff supervision and key relationships. For each, identify an existing deputy, documentation and training still required. Two weeks away from the business can be a useful discussion scenario, but is not proof of transferability.

Map key roles without putting employee personal information into a public worksheet. Check that customer relationships, supplier contacts and operating knowledge are accessible to the right people. Record contract renewal and consent questions for counsel.

Check operational obligations and transaction scope.

Prepare equipment ownership and maintenance records, premises leases, licence and permit lists, customer obligations, intellectual-property records and material disputes. Record the operating location and entity for each item. Ask specialists to determine which approvals or consents apply to the actual transaction.

Separate operating-business preparation from property decisions. If the owner retains a building, identify the future occupancy arrangement for review. If property may be included, obtain appropriate property, environmental and transaction advice rather than folding it into an unsupported business valuation.

• Organize the due-diligence folders

Use the checklist to choose the next action.

An unchecked item is a prompt for work, not a reason to manufacture an answer. Agree the few gaps most likely to affect continuity or the reliability of the financial picture. Decide whether they should be resolved before buyer outreach or explained transparently during it.

The interactive checklist uses only temporary checkbox state. It does not ask for financial amounts, names or documents and does not save or send your selections. Keep the detailed evidence and responsibility list in your own controlled records.

• See the full sale process

Your readiness checklist

Mark items you have evidence for. Selections are temporary, are not sent to Clarity and do not produce a readiness score. You can print this page for your private working notes.