Audit and Review Readiness
Assess whether your trial balance, reconciliations, schedules, contracts, controls, and prepared-by-client package are ready for external accountants.
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Lender and Financing Readiness
Check whether your financial statements, cash forecast, debt capacity, owner information, and supporting records are ready for a financing request.
6 guided steps
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Official guidance links
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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 your accrual-basis financial statements for the last two years tie out to your filed tax returns and bank statements without unexplained differences?
Lenders and investors both start by reconciling your statements to your tax returns and bank activity; unexplained gaps stall the review before anyone looks at the numbers themselves.
Clean up and reconcile the financials before you approach any funder.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
Is the main goal to borrow against the business - a term loan, SBA loan, or line of credit you will repay from cash flow?
Debt is repaid from operating cash flow and keeps your ownership intact; equity is sold to investors and dilutes you but needs no fixed repayment - the two paths ask for very different packages.
Use the interactive tool above to see how this applies to your situation.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
Is the primary purpose of this financing to replace, consolidate, or extend existing debt that is straining cash flow - rather than to fund growth or a purchase?
A near-term maturity, a covenant you are about to trip, or debt service you can no longer cover is a workout situation; it is handled very differently from a fresh loan for expansion.
Restructure the existing debt before adding new borrowing.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
After a reasonable owner salary, does the business cover roughly 1.25 times the new annual loan payments from cash flow - and do you have collateral or a solid personal credit profile to pledge?
Banks and SBA lenders commonly look for a debt-service coverage ratio around 1.25x plus collateral or a personal guarantee; below that, the request is usually declined or re-priced - confirm current lender criteria.
Package the business for a bank or SBA loan. Rebuild coverage and collateral before applying, or shift toward equity.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
Can the business show fast, repeatable revenue growth or a large market it could scale into - the kind of upside an equity investor buys, as opposed to steady but flat cash flow?
Equity investors price the size of the exit, not this year's profit; a stable local business that grows slowly is usually a poor fit for outside equity even when it is perfectly healthy.
Package the business for a bank or SBA loan.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
Do you have a driver-based financial model - unit economics, a three-statement projection, and a clear use of funds tied to specific milestones?
Investors underwrite the forward model far more than the trailing statements; without unit economics and a milestone-linked raise, a round typically stalls in diligence regardless of the story.
Package the business for an equity raise. Build the investor model and unit economics before you raise.
Official guidance: SBA funding programs
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