Most acquisition entrepreneurs hit the same wall after (or right before) a deal:
The numbers aren’t as clear as they seemed, cash is tighter than expected, and it’s hard to know what to trust. We help you evaluate deals, structure things correctly, and actually understand what’s going on after you take over.
On paper, eveything checked out.
The projections worked
The margins looked solid
The cash flow made sense.
Then you step in and realize:
This is where most buyers get stuck.
We help you bridge the gap between what the deal said and what’s actually happening.
Most accounting firms are set up for ongoing businesses with clean books and stable operations. That’s not what you’re dealing with. You’re stepping into a business with inherited numbers, unclear margins, and a lot of unknowns. You need help understanding what’s real, fixing what isn’t, and setting things up properly going forward.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla quam velit, vulputate eu pharetra nec, mattis ac neque. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla quam velit, vulputate.
Whether you’re making your first acquisition or your tenth, we’ve been there. Let’s talk.
We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Schedule a free consultation to help you understand what you’re actually getting into.
Related Service
A lean Quality of Earnings report at a fraction of the price. Three things included, one fixed fee. Built for $500K to $5M deals.
See What's Included in QoE LiteCommon Questions
Three usual reasons: working capital normalization was off in the deal (you paid for less cash than you needed at close), purchase price allocation is creating depreciation/amortization deductions that mask real cash use, or operating cash conversion is slower than the seller's P&L suggested. A buyer-side cash flow review surfaces which of the three is happening so you can fix it.
You build a job-level or customer-level P&L from the bookkeeping data you inherited. Most sellers report at the company level only, which hides loss-making accounts that are subsidized by profitable ones. We rebuild the chart of accounts and reporting layer so you can see margin by job, by client, or by service line within the first 60 days post-close.
If the seller is on QuickBooks and the books are clean, keep it and tighten the chart of accounts. If they are on a custom legacy system, on Excel, or the books are obviously stale, change it within the first 90 days. The right answer is rarely 'change everything immediately' and rarely 'leave it alone.' We help buyers decide which based on the actual books.
Cutover accounting, purchase price allocation, payroll and Billpay setup, opening AR and AP, first month's close, monthly reporting package, and a first quarterly tax estimate. Most buyers also need a 13-week cash flow forecast in the first 30 days because the model that supported the deal does not match the daily cash reality.
The financial work is different in three ways: the books you inherit were built for the seller's tax position, not yours; the deal's depreciation and amortization schedule changes your reported earnings even if operations are identical; and your debt service (especially SBA) creates a cash flow constraint the seller did not have. The first 90 days of accounting work translates the deal model into the actual business you now own.
Yes, in the same way you would not hire a generalist attorney for an M&A deal. Most CPAs are built to keep an operating business compliant. An acquisition-focused CPA is built to translate the deal you signed into a clean financial operating system on day one, and to lock in the tax wins that are only available in the first 90 to 120 days.
The financial diligence a smaller deal actually needs, with CPA Darin Pierson.
