Are your finances investor-ready — or will due diligence expose what you don't know?
Founders and boards preparing for a funding round, PE investment, refinancing, or exit in the next 6–18 months — where finance function maturity will materially affect valuation or deal certainty.
Investors, acquirers, and lenders form their first impression of a business through its numbers — and their second impression through the quality of the finance function that produces them. Late management accounts, weak forecasting, opaque board packs, and brittle financial controls all erode valuation and extend deal timelines, even when the underlying business is strong. By the time external due diligence begins, it is too late to fix these issues quietly. The Finance & Investor-Readiness Audit gives you the sell-side equivalent of due diligence: a senior CFO works through your finance function the way an investor would, identifies every gap that would slow or derail a transaction, and produces a prioritised remediation plan with six to twelve months of runway to act on it.
A structured assessment of your finance function across the dimensions investors and acquirers actively review during diligence. Scored against benchmarks for businesses at your stage and sector — giving the board and shareholders an objective view of where you stand and what specifically erodes valuation today.
A ranked register of every gap a buyer or investor is likely to identify during due diligence, mapped to its likely commercial impact: pricing chip, deal delay, or transaction-killer. Lets you fix the issues that matter most before external diligence begins — when remediation is quiet, cheap, and uncontested.
A specific six- to twelve-month plan to close the gaps identified, with named workstreams, suggested resource (interim, fractional, or permanent), and clear milestones tied to your transaction timeline. Builds in the right sequencing — controls first, then reporting, then the strategic narrative — so the work compounds.
A board pack and presentation walking the leadership team, board, and shareholders through the findings and remediation plan in language that aligns with how investors actually evaluate businesses. Ensures everyone responsible for the transaction holds the same view of readiness and the same plan to get there.
A senior fractional CFO conducts structured interviews with the MD, FD, and finance team. Reviews the past 24 months of management accounts, statutory accounts, board packs, forecasts, and cash flow. Establishes the baseline view of finance function maturity and identifies the early signal areas.
Systematic review of financial controls, close process, KPIs, and forecasting discipline. Investor-perspective sense-check of normalised EBITDA, quality of revenue, working capital, and tax position. Cross-references findings against the specific diligence playbooks of the types of investor or acquirer you intend to engage.
Compilation of the Investor-Readiness Scorecard, Diligence Gap & Risk Register, and Remediation Roadmap into a single board-ready report. Presentation to the leadership team and shareholders with a clear narrative of where you are, what to fix, and in what order.
The Finance & Investor Readiness Audit is a £4,500 fixed-price diagnostic that reviews your finance function, financial controls, management information, and investor-grade reporting maturity. An experienced fractional CFO leads the engagement, identifies gaps that would slow or derail a transaction, and produces a prioritised action plan to get the business commercially fit for fundraising, refinancing, or sale.
Ideally six to twelve months before any planned transaction — funding round, refinancing, MBO, or trade sale. That gives time to act on the recommendations and present clean, well-evidenced numbers to investors or buyers. The audit is also valuable for businesses that have outgrown their original finance function and want to know where investment in people, systems, and process will deliver the biggest commercial return.
Financial due diligence is what investors or acquirers commission on the buy-side, focused on validating historical numbers and identifying transaction risk. The Finance & Investor Readiness Audit is the sell-side equivalent: it tells you what investors will find, what they will mark you down on, and what to fix before they look. It also assesses forward-looking capability — management information, forecasting, board reporting, KPIs — that conventional financial due diligence rarely covers in depth.
The audit covers month-end and year-end close, cash and working capital management, statutory and management reporting, board pack quality, forecasting and budgeting discipline, KPI design, finance team capability, finance systems and automation, tax position, and investor-grade documentation. Where relevant it also reviews exit-readiness specifics such as data-room preparation, normalised EBITDA, and quality of revenue.
Three to four weeks end-to-end. Week one covers kick-off and stakeholder interviews. Week two covers system reviews, board pack assessment, and a deep dive into financial controls. Weeks three and four produce the written report and the formal presentation, typically to the MD, FD, and one or more board members or shareholders.
You can act on the recommendations yourself, bring in interim resource, or engage Leadership Services for a fractional CFO to lead the remediation directly. The £4,500 audit fee is credited against the first three months of any subsequent fractional CFO engagement, so businesses planning to use the audit as a pre-cursor to a longer engagement pay nothing extra. We also support transactions directly through the Exit Accelerator programme.
Your audit comes with a specific, tailored recommendation for the engagement that will deliver the greatest commercial impact. Most clients start with two weeks of receiving the report — with a director who already knows the business, the brief, and the priorities. There are no long-term contracts, no recruitment delays, and no commercial pressure once the audit completes.