30 items. Six critical areas. One honest answer: are you ready?
Before a PE-backed exit goes to market, the CFO’s fingerprints are on everything — the financials, the narrative, the diligence prep, and the team. This checklist tells you exactly where you stand and what to close before the process begins.
Download the checklist — free
Built for
CFOs
Know your gaps before buy-side QoE does. Fix what’s fixable now.
Operating Partners
Assess portfolio company finance readiness before launching a process.
CEOs
Understand what your CFO needs to have in place — and whether it’s there.
The six areas covered
Financial reporting quality
Audited financials, consistent accounting policies, clean consolidations, and management reporting that reconciles — no parallel tracking systems, no unexplained variances.
EBITDA bridge & adjustments
A fully documented GAAP-to-Adjusted EBITDA bridge with individually supported add-backs — and a CFO and CEO who can deliver the narrative consistently without notes.
Working capital & cash quality
24 months of working capital data, benchmarked DSO/DPO/inventory turns, a completed internal peg analysis, and all off-balance-sheet obligations documented.
FP&A infrastructure & forecasting
A live 13-week cash forecast, a defensible multi-year model, a close process under 7 business days, and a finance team with capacity to run diligence concurrently.
Systems & data integrity
One authoritative system, no manual workarounds, three years of clean accessible data, a current cybersecurity assessment, and a VDR document index ready to go.
Management presentation & narrative
A rehearsed equity story, proactive risk responses prepared in advance, customer concentration addressed, and every diligence participant briefed and aligned.
Know your score
Each item you can check with confidence counts as one point. Where does your company land?
| 1–5 Early stage | 6–10 Building foundation | 11–15 Developing | 16–20 Well positioned | 21–25 Exit ready |
Most CFOs think they’re a 20. They do the checklist and find out they’re 13. That gap is exactly what buyers exploit.
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checklist today.
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