Finance due diligence for an MSP sale
Finance is the one area every MSP owner expects a buyer to dig into. It's also, surprisingly often, the one that slows a deal down, not because the numbers are bad, but because they're not organised in a way that answers the question actually being asked. A buyer isn't just checking that your business is profitable. They're checking that the profit is real, repeatable, and properly understood, starting with how much of your revenue is recurring managed services income against one off project or hardware resale work.
What a buyer's finance due diligence covers
- Multiple years of management accounts, reconciled against your statutory accounts.
- A revenue breakdown by client, by contract type, and by recurring versus one off work.
- Working capital trends over time.
- A written explanation for any unusual month, quarter or year, not a shrug when asked.
- Financial management information that goes beyond the P&L.
Where this catches sellers out
The volume of this can feel enormous if you're pulling it together for the first time under pressure. The biggest time sink is rarely a complicated calculation. It's finding old numbers, in old formats, and making them consistent with how the business reports today. Do that reconciliation as you go, monthly, and it's routine. Do it retrospectively across three or four years mid deal, and it eats weeks of your accountant's time at exactly the point you can least afford the delay.
How MSP Sale Readiness helps
We review your existing management information against what a buyer's finance due diligence will actually ask for, area by area, and flag the gaps early, while your accountant still does the accounting. That means a clear revenue breakdown, a running note of anything unusual explained while it's fresh, and reporting that's already in the shape a buyer expects, well before a deal is live. Your accountant gets a clear brief on exactly what the process will need from them, rather than working it out as questions arrive.
Ready to get your finance due diligence in shape?
Want a quick sense of where you stand on finance? The free readiness assessment covers finance alongside the other eight areas in about three minutes.