{"id":1753,"date":"2013-01-24T09:16:39","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T17:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2015-01-28T12:58:42","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:58:42","slug":"audit-for-financing-funding-selling-busines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masonmyers.com\/audit-for-financing-funding-selling-busines\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial Audit Helpful for Financing, Funding, and Selling Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Audit<\/a><\/p>\n

Financial audits are helpful for financing, funding, or selling your business.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My first financial audit was intimidating.\u00a0 My company, Student Advantage, was preparing for its IPO in 1999 and the audit firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, needed to audit all of the material entities that had merged with Student Advantage during the prior few years.\u00a0 My little start-up company, The Main Quad, had merged with Student Advantage in December 1997 and now the PWC auditors wanted to audit my homespun little Quickbooks accounting that I had done myself as a 20-something entrepreneur and no formal accounting training.\u00a0 I survived it, and the official audit of The Main Quad Inc. was in the Student Advantage IPO SEC filing with all $60,000 of revenue or whatever we had back in 1997.\u00a0 Audits come up anytime you are considering financing, funding, or selling your business.<\/p>\n

Financial audits are on my mind every year at this time as many of my companies and my investment fund, Greybull Stewardship<\/a>, have their annual audits.\u00a0 Audits are work and sometimes the detailed requests are annoying and time-consuming (and many people will say to not waste your time and money).\u00a0 Nonetheless, I am convinced of the helpfulness of them and recommend them to owners whose business gets to the size range where I invest — between $500,000 and $3,000,000 in net income.\u00a0 For start-ups, they probably aren’t worth the time until you have proven your product and your market and are starting to gain traction.\u00a0 For companies in between, a review may be a good option as they are less expensive and time-consuming but you get the benefit of an outsider helping you think about accurate financial records.<\/p>\n

Financial audits (and other audits such as IT security, food safety, education accreditation, etc.) are helpful for these reasons:<\/p>\n