Know which earnings are real before you buy, sell or lend.
Bad information derails deals. OTBC prepares quality of earnings reports and financial due diligence so buyers, sellers, SBA lenders and investors can make decisions on numbers that have been tested, not taken on faith.
Start with your role in the deal.
Buyers
Understand what you're paying for: normalized EBITDA, add-backs, working capital and the risks behind the headline numbers.
Buyer due diligence →Sellers
Find the questions a buyer's diligence team is likely to ask, before they ask them, and prepare your numbers and records.
Sell-side QoE →Lenders
Lender-ready QoE reporting on earnings quality, cash flow and debt-like items to support your credit review.
Lender-ready QoE →Investors
QoE plus an independent valuation view to test an opportunity before you commit capital.
QoE + Valuation →Quality of Earnings & Financial Due Diligence
A QoE looks past the tax return and the broker's summary to the earnings a buyer or lender can actually rely on. We test the numbers, adjust for one-time and owner-related items, and explain what we found in plain English.
- Revenue quality and trends
- Add-backs and one-time items
- Normalized EBITDA
- Working capital and seasonality
- Customer and margin concentration
- Net debt and debt-like items
- Key KPIs and simple charts
- Executive summary of risks
Three ways to engage
Sell-side QoE
Prepare before going to market so fewer surprises surface in a buyer's diligence.
Buy-side QoE
Test the target's earnings, working capital and risks before you close.
Lender-ready QoE
Formatted for credit review, with the schedules lenders typically ask for.
Typical timeline: 3 weeks to 60 days, depending on scope and data. Pricing is set by scope in a written engagement letter.
Support across the transaction.
Business Valuations
A well-supported value range and conclusion using multiple methods, with the key drivers and risks explained.
Learn moreExit Readiness Planning
Guidance and oversight on financial readiness and moving the owner out of the controlling role, well before a sale.
Learn morePerformance-Based Seller Financing
The seller keeps 100% of the equity until paid in full, while the buyer earns ownership by hitting monthly targets.
How it worksA clear process, start to finish.
Scope call
We learn about the deal, the business and your deadline, then agree on scope in a written engagement letter.
Data request
You receive a focused list: P&Ls, balance sheets, tax returns, AR/AP agings, payroll and key contracts.
Analysis & questions
We test the numbers, build the adjustments, and work through open questions with management.
Report & walkthrough
You get an executive summary and supporting schedules, and we walk you through what we found.
Experienced. Plain English. Independent.
We keep reports readable and focused on what matters for the decision in front of you.
Plain-English reporting
An executive summary a business owner can read, backed by the detailed schedules a lender or analyst expects.
Audit experience behind every report
A Quality of Earnings is often called “audit light.” Our CPAs have each spent more than 20 years doing the heavier work: audits and accounting for businesses of every size. Every Quality of Earnings and due diligence engagement is performed or reviewed by one of our CPAs, working alongside experienced business professionals.
Modern, documented process
We use state-of-the-art analytical tools and documented procedures, so the work is consistent, traceable and easy to follow.
Independent
We are not a broker and we don't earn a commission on the sale, so the numbers are not tied to any one outcome.
Where we work
We focus on operating businesses where our methods fit best.
Thinking about selling in the next few years?
Take the free, confidential Exit Readiness Check. It takes about 4 minutes and shows the areas buyers and lenders commonly examine.