The Smarter Business Buyer System
Eight modules that walk a first-time buyer from first interest in a business through to taking ownership. It begins with you — your situation, your risk tolerance and your Business Buying Budget — then prepares, searches, filters, values, offers on and settles a business. Outreach happens in two waves: a light information request in Module 3, then the heavy coded-data request in Module 4. Your work saves as you go.
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Module 1About You & Your Situation
Start in your buyer profile — your skills, situation, risk tolerance and your Business Buying Budget (your finances and maximum spend).
Module 2Preparing to Search for the Right Business to Buy
Before searching, build your advisory team and budget for the search — a paid strategy session can help — then estimate the total costs of buying below.
Module 3Searching for the Right Business to Buy
Quick First Filter
freeBasic Filter Analysis step 1 — is the business suitable based on your Business Buying Profile? A compressed filter run on profile-level information, before any outreach.
📨 Outreach — wave one
freeIf the Quick First Filter passes: the Basic Filter Information Request — the owner/business questions and the basic financial documents the Complete First Filter needs (three years of P&L, the adjustment schedules, and the current/last-year monthly turnover). Sent to the owner or the broker. (Much of the early information is already in your Buyer Profile.)
Complete First Filter
paidBasic Filter Analysis steps 1 & 2 — is the business well established and sustainably profitable, with an improvement opportunity? Saved profile and budget plus the full per-business basic filter.
Module 4Pre-Due-Diligence Secondary Filters
Monthly financial year comparisons
paidMonth-by-month sales across the financial years, with the year-over-year growth and the current-year variance — built from your wave-one monthly turnover figures. Part of confirming the business is sustainably profitable.
Financial History Summary
paidThree historical years plus the current-year forecast, built from your wave-one documents. The direction of revenue, margins and adjusted net profit confirms whether the business is well established and sustainably profitable — part of the secondary filters. It also carries forward to the Budget Adjusted P&L.
📨 Outreach — wave two
freeIf the Complete First Filter passes: the Secondary Filter Information Request — the heavy coded data new to this stage (coded customer / product / category sales files, three-year balance sheets, reconciled debtor and creditor balances, asset register, lease, employee schedule, suppliers). Items already gathered in wave one are requested only if not already received.
Secondary Filter Analysis
paidTwenty-five-topic scored pre-due-diligence engine — confirming the business is established, sustainably profitable, and has improvement opportunities.
Sales Analysis
paidCoded customer, product, and category sales metrics (supports the secondary filter).
SWOT & Competitor
paidSWOT and competitor templates feeding the Secondary Filter.
Improvement & Budget Adjusted P&L
paidCreate the financial models — the forward profit-and-loss for THIS business: improvement-opportunity costing and the budget adjusted P&L. (Not your Business Buying Budget, which is your own finances in your profile.)
Module 5Determining a Value for the Business
Module 6Making an Offer on the Business
Module 7Due-Diligence
Module 8Settlement of the Business
The paid worksheets unlock with a one-time toolkit purchase; the free tools and the Risk Tolerance Reflection are always open. Your work saves as you go.