Clean numbers are the cheapest multiple improvement available to any owner. Here is a ninety-day plan that costs little and pays for itself many times over.
Buyers do not expect big-company finance from a £1m-profit business. They expect numbers that tie: management figures that reconcile to the bank, adjustments backed by evidence, and revenue you can split by customer and type. All of it is achievable in ninety days.
If you do not produce monthly management accounts, start. One page is enough: revenue, gross margin, overheads, EBITDA, cash, debtors. Produce it the same way every month, and reconcile it to the bank statement. A buyer trusts a boring, consistent pack far more than a beautiful one-off. If bookkeeping is behind, a good part-time bookkeeper fixes that in weeks, and it is the single best money you will spend before a sale.
Adjusted EBITDA is where your value hides. Your salary normalised to a market rate, family members on the payroll, personal costs through the business, genuine one-offs: each adjustment you can evidence adds directly to the profit figure a buyer multiplies. Write each one down with the amount, the reason and the proof. Doing this yourself, before a buyer’s accountant does, keeps you in control of the story.
Split revenue two ways: by customer (showing concentration honestly) and by type (contracted and recurring versus one-off). Then build one folder: three years of accounts, VAT returns, the big customer and supplier contracts, the lease, employment terms, accreditations, insurance. That folder is most of due diligence answered in advance.
Three reasons. Uncertainty is always priced against you, and clean numbers remove it. Diligence gets shorter, and short diligence keeps deals alive. And the discipline itself reads as management quality, which is exactly what a buyer is paying a multiple for. The same profit, better evidenced, is simply worth more.
Tatu partners with the owners of UK service businesses making £500k to £3m a year in profit: money out today, a meaningful stake kept, and a bigger sale built together. See how it works, try the free valuation estimate, or write to nico@tatu-capital.com.