availableUSD 19.99

Same product, same price. Each handles payment and tax as merchant of record, so use whichever suits you.

Buying a small business and doing the preparation yourself? The seller's accounts answer the question the seller wants asked. This toolkit turns 24 months of the target's P&L into normalised EBITDA, works a 45 line red flags checklist, and says where every finding lands.

Who it is for. Someone buying a small business who does the preparation themselves, between the letter of intent and signing, and wants the earnings figure a price is built on.

What you get

One ZIP, about 153 KB, with five files: an eight page guide as a PDF, the QoE bridge and the red flags checklist as blank Excel workbooks, and the same two workbooks completed for a fictional distributor.

Requires Excel 2016 or later for the workbooks, any PDF reader for the guide. No macros and no add-ins.

Inside

Normalised EBITDA, month by month.

The QoE bridge takes 24 months of the target's P&L and gives you normalised EBITDA for the first year and the last twelve months. Each adjustment carries its heading, its evidence and the sentence you will say to the seller. A checks sheet proves the bridge ties.

A red flags checklist of 45 lines.

Twelve headings under four questions. Is the data accurate, are the earnings sustainable, are the assets what they claim to be, and what liabilities are not on the page. Each line carries the red flag that most often gives the problem away, and where its finding usually lands.

Every finding lands somewhere.

The price, the working capital peg, protection in the agreement, or the deal itself. The eight page guide gives the order to decide it in, so nothing survivable gets priced when it should have ended the deal.

A worked example that ties.

Both workbooks come twice, blank and completed for Kestrel Trade Supplies, a fictional distributor, tying end to end. Open the worked example first.

Macro free.

Nothing runs when you open a file and every formula is on the sheet.

Questions

Is this a quality of earnings report?

No. It is a preparation tool you operate yourself. No practitioner is engaged, no opinion is expressed and no report is addressed to anyone.

Does it value the business?

No. It gives you the normalised earnings a multiple is applied to, and stops there.

Does it cover tax or legal diligence?

No. It is general, not specific to any country's tax or legal rules. Findings that need a lawyer land on "protection", which is your lawyers' brief.

What do I need to run it?

Excel 2016 or later. Everything is macro free: nothing runs when you open a file, and every formula is on the sheet.

Terms

Licence. Yours to use however you like: your own work, client engagements, across your whole firm, modified or rebranded, for as long as you like. One purchase, no seat count, no renewal. The one thing we ask is that you do not resell or redistribute the files themselves as a product.

Privacy. Whichever of Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad or Polar you buy through is the merchant of record. It receives your name, email, payment details and billing country, and handles payment and any sales tax under its own registrations. The studio receives order metadata only, the product, amount, date and your email for delivery and support, and never receives card details. The downloaded files carry no tracking, no analytics, nothing that phones home, no macros and no active content. The workbooks contain formulas only, every one visible on the sheet, with no external workbook links, and the guide is a PDF with nothing to run and no links out.Confirmed 2026-10-19.