Audit and Review Readiness
Assess whether your trial balance, reconciliations, schedules, contracts, controls, and prepared-by-client package are ready for external accountants.
Open the free tool
For owners, founders, and finance leaders
Budget and Forecast Readiness
Check whether your budget connects operating drivers, cash, staffing, investment, and accountability into a forecast management can use.
5 guided steps
Private in your browser
Official guidance links
Start the free checker
Your free guided checker
Answer a few quick questions below. It is private - nothing is submitted or stored - and takes about a minute.
Informational business diagnostic only; not accounting, audit, tax, legal, investment, lending, or valuation advice.
The questions this tool walks you through
Here is what the checker asks and why each step matters. Prefer to talk it through? Contact us and we will help directly.
Do you have an approved annual budget in place for the current year that management actually works from?
A budget is the baseline everything else measures against; without one, there is nothing to forecast toward or explain variances against.
Build a first annual budget tied to a revenue plan and a cash forecast.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Do you compare actual results to budget every month and put a number on each material variance?
A budget only earns its keep when the monthly actuals land next to it and someone quantifies the gap - unmeasured variances cannot be managed.
Stand up a monthly budget-to-actual variance review with named owners.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Is your revenue forecast built from underlying business drivers - units, price, customers, utilization, or pipeline conversion - rather than a single percentage growth on last year?
A driver-based forecast lets you flex assumptions and see why the number moves; a flat percentage on prior year hides the levers management actually controls.
Rebuild the forecast on a driver-based model that flows to cash.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Do you re-forecast the full year on a rolling basis - refreshing the outlook at least quarterly with the latest actuals - rather than freezing the original annual budget?
A rolling forecast always looks a full 12 months ahead and absorbs new information; a frozen annual budget goes stale the moment volume, pricing, or hiring shifts.
Convert the static annual budget into a rolling 12-month forecast.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Is a hiring, pricing, financing, capital-spend, or expansion decision on the table in the next two or three quarters whose outcome would materially change the plan?
A single base-case forecast is fine for steady state; a real decision under uncertainty needs base, upside, and downside cases so you can see the range before you commit capital.
Add base, upside, and downside scenarios to pressure-test the decision. Keep the rolling driver-based model and sharpen review discipline.
Official guidance: SBA guidance for managing finances
Want a professional to confirm your answer?
Send us your situation and one of our senior CPAs will review it with you - fixed fee, no surprises.
Contact Us