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This engagement is designed to evaluate a business you're considering buying — from the perspective of someone whose career has been spent determining whether the numbers behind a deal are real.
Buying a business is one of the largest financial commitments you'll ever make. And it's the one where you have the least visibility.
The seller controls the narrative. The broker controls the presentation. The financials you've been given have been prepared to make the business look as attractive as possible — and nobody involved in putting this deal together is incentivized to show you the problems.
Your attorney is reviewing the legal risk. Your CPA will handle the tax implications after the deal closes. But neither of them is trained to do what I do — take the seller's financial statements and tax returns, strip away the presentation, and evaluate whether the business actually supports the purchase price, whether the cash flow covers the debt, whether the earnings are real and sustainable, and whether a lender will fund this deal as structured.
That's the gap this review fills. I've spent more than 20 years as a direct lender, underwriter, financing facilitator, and M&A advisor — sitting on the side of the table where the money either moves forward or stops. I've evaluated thousands of businesses. I've seen every way financials can be made to look better than reality — inflated add-backs, unsustainable margins, customer concentration masked by strong top-line revenue, owner compensation structures designed to inflate discretionary earnings. I know what to look for because I've spent my career looking for exactly these things.
This review puts that experience between you and the biggest financial commitment on the table.
Who This Is For
This is for the business owner or prospective buyer who is actively evaluating an acquisition and wants an independent financial review before committing capital.
You're in discussions to buy an existing business and you have access to the seller's financial statements, tax returns, or broker-provided data. The numbers look promising — but you want someone who's underwritten thousands of deals to tell you whether they hold up under real scrutiny.
You're working with a broker, attorney, and CPA — but none of them evaluate deals from an underwriting and bankability perspective. You need the piece that's missing from your advisory team.
A valuation or asking price has been presented and you want an independent read on whether the number is grounded in financial reality — or whether it's built on optimistic adjustments and inflated add-backs.
You're planning to use SBA financing, conventional bank debt, or seller financing to fund the acquisition and you need to understand how a lender will view this deal before you submit the application — not after.
You've done your own analysis and the deal looks good on paper. But you've been around long enough to know that what a deal looks like on paper and what it looks like through an underwriter's eyes are often two very different things.
This is a significant financial commitment — potentially the largest of your career — and you want a clear-eyed, independent financial review from someone who has no interest in whether this deal closes.
If you're evaluating a business acquisition and real capital is on the line — this is the most important analysis you can commission before signing.
What I Evaluate
I review the seller's financials the same way a bank's underwriting team would — except I'm working for you, not for the lender, and not for the seller.
Three years of business tax returns, profit and loss statements, and balance sheets from the target business
Revenue trends, gross margins, and operating cost structure — is the business growing, stable, or quietly declining beneath a strong top-line number?
Owner compensation, add-backs, and adjusted cash flow — Seller's Discretionary Earnings calculated the way an underwriter calculates them, not the way a broker presents them
Debt service coverage and bankability under SBA and conventional lending criteria — can this business actually service the debt required to buy it at the asking price?
Customer concentration, revenue quality, and earnings sustainability — is the income diversified and repeatable, or is it dependent on relationships, contracts, or conditions that may not transfer?
Asset composition and working capital position — what's actually included in the sale, and is the working capital sufficient to operate the business post-closing?
Red flags — declining revenue, margin compression, unusual expenses, off-book adjustments, inconsistencies between tax returns and financial statements, and anything else that signals the financials may not be telling the full story
What You Receive
Within 10 business days of receiving complete documents, I deliver a Written Financial Review Memo — a thorough, underwriting-level analysis of the business you're considering acquiring.
Your memo will include:
Adjusted cash flow analysis with every add-back identified, evaluated, and either validated or challenged — because not every add-back a broker claims is one a lender will accept
Debt service coverage calculation under standard lending terms — the number that determines whether this deal is fundable at the proposed price, and at what price point it stops working
Bankability assessment — how a lender will view this deal, what they'll approve, what they'll push back on, and the realistic range of financing available for this specific acquisition
Identification of every financial risk, inconsistency, and area requiring further due diligence — the things the broker's package didn't highlight and the seller isn't volunteering
Revenue quality analysis — whether the earnings are sustainable, transferable, and built on a foundation that survives the ownership transition
Clear recommendation framework — proceed, proceed with conditions, renegotiate, or walk away — with the specific financial reasoning behind each path
A 30-minute follow-up call is included to walk through the findings, discuss the risk profile, and answer direct questions about the financial viability of the acquisition.
Why This Matters Financially
There is no financial decision with a wider gap between upside and downside than a business acquisition.
When it works, an acquisition can double your revenue, expand your capacity, eliminate a competitor, and build the kind of value that changes your financial trajectory permanently. When it doesn't work, it can consume every dollar of available capital, saddle you with debt the business can't service, drain the cash flow from your existing operations, and take three to five years to recover from — if recovery is possible at all.
The difference between those two outcomes almost always comes down to one thing: whether someone evaluated the financials independently, rigorously, and honestly before the commitment was made.
Here's the reality of how most acquisitions are presented. The seller's broker prepares a package designed to maximize the asking price. The add-backs are aggressive. The adjusted earnings are optimistic. The growth projections assume the best version of every scenario. That's not deception — that's their job. Their job is to sell the business for the highest possible price. Nobody on that side of the table is paid to tell you the problems.
Your attorney reviews the legal risk. Your CPA evaluates the tax structure. But neither of them opens the tax returns and financial statements and asks the questions I ask: Are these earnings real? Are they sustainable? Will they survive the ownership transition? Can this business service the debt at this price? What happens when revenue drops 15%? What's hiding in the margins, the add-backs, and the balance sheet?
That's what 20+ years of underwriting and deal analysis trained me to see. And that's exactly what this review delivers.
$3,500 is the cost of this analysis. A bad acquisition — overstated earnings, unsustainable margins, customer concentration, hidden liabilities — costs $100,000 to $500,000 or more. Some of them cost the entire business. The math is not complicated.
What This Is Not
This is not a certified business appraisal or formal valuation opinion. It's an independent financial review conducted from an underwriting and deal analysis perspective. If you need a certified appraisal for legal or contractual requirements, that's a separate engagement with a credentialed appraiser.
This is not legal advice or contract review. I analyze the financial viability of the deal — your attorney handles the legal terms and documentation.
This is not a guarantee of loan approval or deal success. I give you the clearest possible financial picture. What you do with it is your decision.
Engagement Terms
Payment of $3,500 is required before any review begins.
You provide the seller's financial documents — tax returns, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and any broker-prepared materials — through a secure intake form.
The deliverable is a Written Financial Review Memo plus one 30-minute follow-up call.
Your memo is delivered within 10 business days of receiving complete documents.
Scope is limited to the financial documents provided at the time of engagement. Additional analysis beyond the original scope is available as a separate engagement.
All sales are final. You're paying for professional financial analysis, which is delivered in full.
How It Works
Step 1: Complete your payment on this page.
Step 2: You receive a secure intake form. Upload the seller's tax returns, financial statements, any broker-prepared materials, proposed deal terms, and the asking price or valuation.
Step 3: I conduct a full underwriting-level review of the seller's financials — adjusted cash flow, debt service coverage, bankability, revenue quality, risk identification, and deal viability.
Step 4: Your Written Financial Review Memo is delivered to your email within 10 business days of receiving complete documents.
Step 5: We get on the phone for a 30-minute follow-up call to walk through the findings and discuss the financial viability of the acquisition.
Who You're Working With
I'm Charles M. Barr, founder and CEO of LVRG Business Funding. I've spent more than 20 years on the financial side of business acquisitions — as the lender deciding whether to fund the deal, as the underwriter determining whether the numbers are real, and as the M&A advisor helping buyers understand what they're actually buying.
I've evaluated thousands of businesses across manufacturing, construction, healthcare, professional services, distribution, and every major operator-driven industry. I've seen clean deals and I've seen deals where the financials fell apart under scrutiny in ways the buyer never would have caught on their own. I've told buyers to walk away from deals that looked perfect on the surface. I've also told buyers to move forward aggressively when the numbers supported a transaction everyone else was hesitant about.
I don't have a stake in whether your deal closes. I don't earn a commission on the sale. I don't represent the seller, the broker, or the bank. The only thing I deliver is the truth about what the financials say — and that's the one thing nobody else at the table is paid to give you.
Disclaimer: This engagement does not constitute legal advice, tax advice, accounting services, or a certified business appraisal. The Financial Review Memo reflects the professional judgment of the analyst based on documents provided by the client and experience in commercial finance, underwriting, and M&A advisory. No guarantee of loan approval, deal viability, transaction success, or specific financial outcomes is made or implied. This is a single engagement — not an ongoing advisory relationship, retainer, or open-ended commitment. Payment is required before work begins. All sales are final.