Download the Finance and Accounting Templates spreadsheet (Excel)
Finance and Accounting Templates
A guide to your workbook, and how a buyer reads every sheet.
Why This Workbook Matters
When a buyer looks at your business, the first thing they study is your numbers.
Not your story. Not your trucks or your team. Your numbers.
If your numbers are clean, clear and easy to follow, the buyer relaxes. If they are messy, the buyer gets nervous. Nervous buyers offer less, ask for more, or walk away.
This workbook gives you eight sheets that organize your numbers the way a buyer expects to see them. Every number starts at zero. You fill in your own.
How the workbook works
- Light-blue cells with blue text are where you type.
- White cells hold formulas. Do not type over them.
- Green text means the number is pulled from another sheet.
- Start with the Monthly P&L. Several other sheets read from it.
Use your bookkeeping software or your CPA’s statements as the source. This workbook organizes your numbers. It does not replace your accountant. Confirm anything tax-related or valuation-related with your CPA and advisors.
Sheet 1: Start Here
This is the instruction page. It lists every sheet, explains the color code, and defines the key terms.
Read it once. Then move on.
Sheet 2: Monthly P&L
A P&L (profit and loss statement) shows what came in, what went out, and what was left over.
This sheet lays out 12 months side by side, with a total for the year.
What you fill in
- Revenue lines. Rename them to match how you sell (for example, “Installs,” “Service Calls,” “Retainers”). There is a separate line for recurring or service-plan revenue.
- Cost of goods sold (COGS). The direct cost of delivering your work: materials, direct labor, subcontractors.
- Operating expenses. Everything it takes to run the business: rent, insurance, office staff, marketing, software. Your own pay has its own lines.
- Other items. Interest, depreciation and amortization, and income taxes paid by the business.
What the sheet calculates
- Total revenue, total COGS and gross profit.
- Gross margin % (gross profit as a share of revenue).
- Total operating expenses and operating income.
- Net income and net margin %.
- EBITDA before add-backs. EBITDA means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
How a buyer reads it
A buyer looks across the months for three things.
- Is revenue steady or growing? Big swings make buyers ask why.
- Is gross margin stable? A margin that slides month to month can mean pricing or cost problems.
- Does it match your tax returns and bank statements? If not, expect hard questions.
Monthly numbers also show seasonality. That is fine. Buyers just want to see it is predictable.
Sheet 3: Owner Add-Backs & SDE
This is the sheet that shows a buyer what your business really earns.
Most owners run some personal costs through the business. Many also pay themselves in ways that lower taxable profit. That is common. But it makes your profit look smaller than it really is to a new owner.
An add-back is an expense a new owner would not have. You add it back to profit to show the true earning power.
What you fill in
Several lines link automatically from your P&L: your salary, your payroll taxes and benefits, interest, depreciation and amortization, and income taxes.
Then you fill in the rest:
- Personal expenses paid by the business
- The personal-use share of your vehicle
- Personal travel and meals
- Family members on payroll who do not work in the business
- Above-market rent paid to a property company you own
- One-time costs that will not repeat
There is also a Deductions section. This is for one-time income, or costs that are too low today (like rent below market). Honest deductions build trust.
Use the “Proof on file?” column. Every add-back needs a receipt, a statement or a clear explanation behind it.
What the sheet calculates
- SDE (Seller’s Discretionary Earnings). Net income plus add-backs, minus deductions. It shows what one full-time owner-operator could take home. SDE is common for smaller businesses.
- Adjusted EBITDA. SDE minus a market-rate salary for someone to do your job. You enter that salary. Larger businesses and private equity buyers usually look at this number.
- Adjusted EBITDA margin %.
- A rough value range. You enter a low and high multiple. Small businesses often trade at roughly 2–5x SDE or 3–7x EBITDA, but this varies widely by size, industry, growth and risk. This is for discussion only. It is not an appraisal.
How a buyer reads it
A buyer reads every add-back line and asks one question: “Can you prove it?”
Add-backs with proof raise your earnings in the buyer’s eyes. Add-backs without proof get thrown out, and they can make the buyer doubt the rest of your numbers too.
Keep the list honest and short. A buyer trusts five clear add-backs more than twenty stretches.
Sheet 4: 13-Week Cash Flow
Profit and cash are not the same thing. A profitable business can still run out of cash.
This sheet forecasts cash in and cash out, week by week, for the next 13 weeks (about one quarter).
What you fill in
- The start date and your minimum cash cushion (the lowest balance you are comfortable with).
- Week 1 beginning cash.
- Expected cash in each week: customer collections, deposits, loan draws.
- Expected cash out each week: payroll, suppliers, rent, loan payments, taxes, owner draws.
What the sheet calculates
- Weekly totals for cash in and cash out.
- Net cash flow for each week.
- Ending cash, which rolls forward as next week’s beginning cash.
- A LOW flag on any week where ending cash falls below your cushion.
How a buyer reads it
A buyer may never ask for this exact sheet. But they will notice if you have one.
An owner who forecasts cash every week is an owner who runs a tight ship. It also helps during a sale, when you need to keep the business steady while you negotiate. Update it every Monday with real numbers.
Sheet 5: KPI Dashboard
KPIs (key performance indicators) are the handful of numbers that tell you if the business is healthy.
This sheet tracks them month by month.
What comes in automatically
From your P&L: revenue, revenue growth, gross margin, operating expenses as a percent of revenue, net margin, recurring revenue, and marketing spend.
From Customer Concentration: your largest customer’s share, your top five customers’ share, and how many customers are over your threshold.
What you fill in
Each month: active customers at the start of the month, new customers won, customers lost, new leads, proposals decided, and deals won.
What the sheet calculates
- Active customers at the end of each month
- Customer churn % (the share of customers you lost)
- Average revenue per customer
- Customer acquisition cost (marketing spend divided by new customers)
- Lead-to-customer rate and close rate
- Recurring revenue % of total
How a buyer reads it
Buyers pay more for predictable revenue. These numbers show whether yours is predictable.
A growing share of recurring revenue, low churn and a steady close rate all tell the buyer the same thing: revenue will keep coming after you leave. A year of tracked KPIs is also proof that you run the business by the numbers, not by gut feel.
Sheet 6: Customer Concentration
Customer concentration means too much of your revenue comes from too few customers.
If one customer leaves and takes a big piece of your revenue with them, the buyer takes the hit. So buyers look at this closely. Many start to worry when one customer is more than about 10–15% of revenue. The exact line varies by buyer and industry.
What you fill in
- Your flag threshold. It is set to 15%. Change it if your advisor uses a different line.
- Your top 20 customers and their revenue over the last 12 months, largest first.
- All other customers combined.
- Whether each top customer has a written contract, and how many years they have been with you.
What the sheet calculates
- Each customer’s share of revenue and the running (cumulative) total.
- An OVER LIMIT flag, with red shading, on any customer above your threshold.
- Your largest customer %, top 5 %, top 10 %, and the number of customers over the threshold.
- A status line: OK or REVIEW: concentration risk.
- A comparison to your P&L revenue, so you can check the totals match.
How a buyer reads it
This is one of the first risk checks a buyer runs.
A flagged customer can lower the price, shift more of the price into an earnout (money paid later, only if targets are hit), or make some buyers pass.
What helps: written contracts with large customers, long relationships, and a trend showing the top customer’s share coming down. If you have a concentration problem, the Marketing and Sales Templates gift is built to help you add new accounts and spread the risk.
Sheet 7: AR Aging
Accounts receivable (AR) is money customers owe you. Aging sorts it by how late it is.
What you fill in
- The “as of” date (it defaults to today).
- Each unpaid invoice: customer, invoice number, invoice date, due date and amount.
What the sheet calculates
- Days past due for each invoice.
- Each invoice sorted into Current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days.
- Totals and the share of money in each bucket.
- Red shading on any invoice more than 60 days past due.
- Total past due, % over 60 days, and an approximate DSO (days sales outstanding: about how many days it takes customers to pay you).
How a buyer reads it
Old receivables worry buyers. Money that is 90 days late may never come in.
In many deals, the buyer expects a normal level of working capital to come with the business. Uncollectible AR can reduce what you take home at closing. Your CPA or advisor can explain how this works in your deal.
Keep this sheet clean. Chase late invoices every week. A short, current AR list tells the buyer your customers pay, and that your billing process works.
Sheet 8: Budget vs Actual
A budget is your plan. This sheet shows how close you came to it.
What you fill in
- The month number you want to review (1 to 12).
- Your budget for that month and your budget year to date, line by line.
Actual numbers pull automatically from your P&L for the month you choose.
What the sheet calculates
- Variance in dollars and percent, for the month and year to date.
- Variances are set up so a positive number is always good: more revenue than planned, or less expense than planned.
- A status for each line: On track or Off budget (shaded red).
How a buyer reads it
A buyer will often ask about your forecast for the rest of the year. If you have a history of hitting your budgets, your forecast is believable. If you do not have budgets at all, the buyer has to guess. And buyers guess low.
Review this sheet every month. When a line goes off budget, write down why.
Your Monthly Rhythm
Here is a simple routine that keeps this workbook useful:
Do this for a year, and you will know your business the way a buyer will. Do it for two or three years, and you will have the clean, consistent history buyers pay more for.
Valuexus shows you how changes in your numbers move what your business is worth, so update it as these sheets change.