Free workbook

Your EBITDA,
the way a buyer reads it.

Most owner-prepared EBITDA moves in a quality of earnings review, rarely up, and each struck dollar costs you the dollar times the multiple. This workbook runs the buyer's exercise before the buyer does: list the add-backs, grade the documentation honestly, and see the re-trade exposure in dollars.

What's inside

  • Eighteen pre-loaded add-back categories, from owner comp above market to related-party rent, each with what belongs there and what does not
  • The two questions a QoE team asks of every item: can you document it, and does the expense truly disappear post-close. Each answer grades automatically
  • An EBITDA bridge that shows reported, claimed, and defensible side by side. The gap between the last two is your re-trade exposure
  • A valuation grid that prices that gap at 4x to 8x, so weak documentation shows up as dollars, not vibes
  • No macros, no lock-in. Opens in Excel and imports cleanly into Google Sheets

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How to use it

  1. Work down the add-back categories with your most recent full-year P&L open. Enter annual amounts in the yellow cells.
  2. Grade each item's documentation the way a skeptical stranger would. Strong means verifiable from records you can produce this week.
  3. Enter four P&L lines on the bridge tab. Reported, claimed, and defensible EBITDA calculate, with the exposure priced at your multiple.
  4. Close the gap. Every item you document before a process starts moves dollars from at-risk to defensible.

The background reading: what a quality of earnings review actually tests. If a sale is on your two-year horizon and you want the gap closed properly, start a conversation.