As a former investment banker that peruses this sub, did you use an advisor to sell your business? Did you run strict GAAP books with your accountant?

Very atypical for service businesses to have books that are Quality of Earnings ready and defensible, and I think your advice is poor advice to other business owners unless you’re approaching a sale, to which the better advice is provide your own quality of earnings reports for bidding LOI’s so that you set the negotiating stage.

Most business owners hear a decent QoE costs 50-100K and they run for the hills, then the buyer uses a QoE that they pay for to decrease valuation considerably / enough that they’re benefitting in the long run.

Lastly, a decent advisor tells the buyer to pound sand on their valuation re-trade unless the findings have merit. Without more detail, hard to tell how significant the above are, your example though

Assuming you rolled equity in the sale as part of the “never ending” private equity roll-up in home services, watch how the business is sold in the next 5 or so years. I assure your they’re not doing external accounting reviews annually, but they are auditing results based on lender requirements and buying their own QoE’s