Financial Due Diligence Services

About Our Firm

Excel Complete delivers financial due diligence services for investors, operators, and businesses evaluating mergers & acquisitions, partnerships, or operational risks. We help clients identify hidden issues, evaluate reporting reliability, and better understand a business's operational and financial condition.

Our background spans accounting, financial analysis, and software development, enabling us to evaluate both the financials and the operational systems supporting the business. In addition to reviewing earnings quality and reporting structure, we often identify workflow inefficiencies, reporting gaps, operational risks, and opportunities for the business to improve.

Schedule a call to discuss your due diligence needs and potential next steps. Most calls are led by our principal consultant, Allen Frantsen, a licensed Michigan CPA and software developer with experience in financial modeling, analytics, reporting systems, and operational process improvement. You’ll speak directly with an experienced consultant to review the engagement and determine the appropriate scope of work.

Financial Due Diligence Fees

Financial due diligence engagements are typically $25,000 for businesses with straightforward requirements and less complex systems, generally companies with revenue up to approximately $50 million. This fee includes travel expenses for on-site work. Most projects are completed over a 2–3 week period.

More complex engagements involving larger organizations, multiple entities, fragmented reporting environments, operational concerns, or expanded systems and risk analysis may require additional scope and fees depending on the size and complexity of the engagement.

Excel Complete provides financial due diligence services for clients near our Ann Arbor, Michigan office, including:

• Detroit, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Toledo, OH
• Akron, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Chicago, IL
• Cleveland, OH
• Cincinnati, OH
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Indianapolis, IN

Quality of Earnings (QoE)

We evaluate whether reported earnings are accurate, normalized, and reflective of the business's ongoing performance. This includes reviewing unusual transactions, inconsistent reporting periods, and entries that may distort profitability or overstate ongoing earnings.

Our review also focuses on margin consistency, revenue trends, changes in cost structure, and areas where reported results may not fully reflect the underlying economics of the business. This may include identifying one-time projects, unusual revenue spikes, owner-related adjustments, seasonality impacts, recurring versus nonrecurring income, and other EBITDA normalization items.

Typical areas include:

• EBITDA adjustments and normalization items
• One-time or non-operating activity
• Revenue consistency and margin trends
• Owner add-backs and unusual transactions
• Recurring versus nonrecurring income

Reliability of Financials

Reliable financial reporting is critical during acquisitions, investments, and operational reviews. We assess whether financial statements, supporting schedules, and operational reporting can be trusted for decision-making purposes. This may include evaluating:

• Month-end close processes
• Reporting systems and workflows
• Accounting consistency and reconciliation procedures
• Operational reporting accuracy
• Data quality and reporting structure
• The overall reliability of the financial reporting environment

Working Capital Analysis

We analyze working capital trends and operational cash requirements to help establish normalized working capital expectations for the business. This includes reviewing receivables, payables, inventory, seasonality, and operational liquidity requirements.

Our goal is to determine whether reported working capital levels accurately reflect the company's ongoing operational needs and whether any additional adjustments or considerations are necessary.

Hidden Risks

Many operational and financial risks are not immediately visible within summarized financial statements. We pinpoint structural vulnerabilities, such as customer concentration or key employee dependency, that threaten post-close stability.

This may include customer concentration risk, margin pressure, management dependency, operational bottlenecks, unusual transactions, turnover concerns, reporting inconsistencies, or operational processes heavily dependent on a small number of employees or undocumented workflows. We also evaluate broader operational concerns, including organizational structure, process ownership, and the company’s ability to scale effectively.

Typical areas reviewed include:

• Tax-related exposure and compliance risks
• Customer concentration risk
• Margin compression and pricing pressure
• Going concern considerations
• Management and key-person dependency
• Operational scalability concerns
• Employee turnover and organizational stability
• Workflow and process risks
• Unusual transactions and reporting inconsistencies

Systems Review

Financial and operational reporting issues are often tied directly to underlying systems and workflows. We evaluate accounting systems, reporting processes, Excel dependencies, operational workflows, and reporting structure to identify operational and scalability risks.

Many businesses rely heavily on disconnected spreadsheets, manual processes, and fragmented reporting environments that become difficult to manage as the organization grows. We help identify these risks and areas for operational improvement, including reporting inefficiencies, outdated workflows, data quality concerns, software limitations, and technology environments that may impact scalability or operational performance.

Opportunities to Improve

In addition to identifying risks, we also help uncover opportunities for operational improvement and long-term value creation. This may include pricing optimization, identifying new products or services, improving operational efficiency, and evaluating expansion opportunities into new markets using location intelligence software.

Labor is often a major area for operational upside and profitability improvement. We perform labor analysis and operational modeling to help identify inefficiencies, operational bottlenecks, staffing imbalances, and workflow constraints. These reviews often uncover opportunities to improve operational performance, support scalability, reduce unnecessary labor costs, and identify additional revenue opportunities.

Key Deliverables

Key deliverables typically include a detailed PDF report summarizing findings across earnings quality, reporting reliability, working capital analysis, operational risks, systems evaluation, and identified opportunities for improvement.

Reports generally include supporting observations, operational concerns, risk summaries, and recommendations for additional review or process improvement where appropriate. Depending on the engagement, deliverables may also include supporting Excel models, custom dashboards, forecasting analysis, location intelligence analysis, operational reporting, or additional financial and operational documentation tailored to the project scope.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are answers to common questions about financial due diligence services.

What does financial due diligence for SaaS companies cover?

Financial due diligence for SaaS companies often includes recurring revenue analysis, customer retention and churn trends, revenue recognition policies, deferred revenue, gross margin analysis, working capital reviews, and operational scalability. Technical accounting topics such as evaluating sales tax nexus exposure and capitalized software development costs are also included.

What is included in a financial due diligence scope of work?

The scope includes Quality of Earnings (QoE) analysis, working capital reviews, tax exposure and compliance, financial reporting validation, operational and systems reviews, and identification of hidden risks such as customer concentration, key-person dependency, turnover concerns, and product margin. Reviews may also identify opportunities for improvement, including pricing optimization, labor efficiency, workflow optimization, new products or services, and expansion into new markets.