Fixed-fee, pre-LOI deal screens for self-funded searchers buying sub-$5M businesses. Every add-back tested with a verdict, debt service at your actual SBA structure, red flags ranked, and an insurance cost review that, to my knowledge, no other screening service includes.
A written memo within five business days, signed by a named analyst. Confidentiality agreement signed before any documents change hands.
Broker packages present the best possible arithmetic. My sample screen shows what happens when each line is traced to the statements behind it. In that composite case, a listing presenting $284,000 of seller discretionary earnings supported $209,250 after every add-back was tested, and the debt coverage story changed with it:
Figures from the sample memo, a composite illustration built from published HVAC market benchmarks. No real business is depicted. Client engagements analyze your actual deal documents.
Every add-back gets a verdict: accept, reject, haircut, or partial, each with the reason and the source line. The table re-adds to its total, so you can check my math.
Coverage computed at your actual down payment, rate, and term, with downside cases at revenue declines of 10 and 20 percent, plus the price that clears your coverage target. Run on a tested calculation engine, re-added independently before delivery.
Deal-killers to resolve before the LOI, items that are price or terms leverage, and post-close plan items. Each flag cites the document and page it came from.
Trained in risk management and insurance, I read the target's insurance expense line against what the operation should carry: repricing exposure, workers' compensation experience modification, policy-form questions, and what the customer contracts require. Analytical observations and questions for your licensed agent, and frequently a real pricing lever.
A condensed pre-LOI screen of one target business from the CIM and financials you already hold, delivered within five business days: the Screened SDE bridge with every add-back tested and a verdict on each, debt-service math at your actual loan structure, the top red flags ranked, an insurance cost and risk review, and a question list for the seller.
The full screen: complete red-flag memorandum with scenario analysis where the findings warrant it, the full insurance and risk-transfer section, priority three-business-day turnaround, a 45-minute debrief call, one revision round, and email questions on that deal for 30 days.
Customer-concentration analysis, contract and lease summaries, data-room organization, and management question sets through your exclusivity window. Quality of earnings engagements are referred to independent CPA firms.
Rapid reads (about two pages, within 48 hours) on up to four CIMs per month as you triage your pipeline, plus 20 percent off any full Deal Screen or Diligence Support engagement while the retainer is active.
Every engagement is a fixed fee agreed in writing before work begins. No commissions, no success fees, no surprises.
You can, and you should. I use modern tools too, so I will not pretend there is magic on my side. What you are buying is different: a second, adversarial pass by someone trained in risk analysis, with local rent and insurance repricing checks the model cannot know from the CIM, a tested calculation engine for the debt math, and a named analyst who signs the conclusion and takes your call when a number looks wrong. A first pass finds what the documents say. An adversarial second pass finds what they avoid saying. And the introductory screen is guaranteed: if it does not change your price, your structure, or your seller questions, you do not pay.
Use them. Purpose-built screeners are a sensible way to triage a large pipeline, and several offer free tiers. They are also, by their own published terms, not diligence: the leading tools disclaim financing, valuation, and deal-quality conclusions, and they compute on the numbers the seller's side supplied. A score built on inflated add-backs is a precise measurement of fiction. This screen is for the deal that survives your triage: I rebuild the SDE from source documents rather than the listing copy, give every add-back a verdict, read the insurance and risk-transfer exposure that no screening tool checks (that I am aware of), and sign my name to the conclusion. A score tells you how a deal ranks. A signed second read tells you what to do about the deal in front of you. A few platforms now sell a human-reviewed memo as an upgrade tier; if you are weighing one, compare the deliverables directly. This screen includes the insurance and risk-transfer read none of them offer, the introductory tier carries a guarantee, and you deal with the analyst who wrote it.
That is fair, and I price for it. My launch pricing is roughly a quarter of the established alternative for a comparable pre-LOI product, and the sample memo is public so you can judge the work before you spend anything.
Because this is a different product for a different moment. A quality of earnings engagement is post-LOI, weeks long, and priced accordingly. A deal screen is the rigorous read you need before you write the LOI, at a price that makes sense to run on more than one deal. When you reach the point of needing a QoE, I refer you to independent CPA firms rather than performing it myself.
No. Work that requires a CPA, such as a quality of earnings engagement, gets referred to independent CPA firms. A pre-LOI screen is a different discipline: risk analysis, applied at the stage where a full engagement is premature but a mistake is already expensive. My training is a Risk Management and Insurance degree and two CPCU examinations, and the screen stays inside that lane: rebuilt SDE, tested debt-service math, ranked red flags, insurance repricing. On smaller deals, many lenders never require a QoE at all, which is exactly when an unscreened CIM is most dangerous. When your deal does warrant one, the screen makes that engagement cheaper and sharper, because the financials arrive spread and the red flags arrive documented.
Yes. I execute a confidentiality agreement before receiving any deal materials, and most broker NDAs permit sharing with your advisors.
I'm Rory Hutchison, based in Atlanta. Training: B.B.A. in Risk Management and Insurance from the University of Georgia, with two CPCU examinations completed. That is the discipline of reading a business's documents for mispriced risk, and it is why my screens include an insurance read no other screening service I know of bundles.
Method: AI-accelerated document extraction and spreading, followed by line-by-line human judgment on every add-back and finding. The deal math runs on a tested calculation engine and is re-added independently before delivery. Every memo carries my name and my signature conclusion.