The seller hands you a story — revenue, "adjusted" earnings, add-backs. Diligence is how you replace that story with documents. Probity gives you the exact request list, in the right order, built by a CFO who has done this from the inside.
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Generic checklists are a wall of items copied from corporate M&A. This list is sequenced for how sub-$5M deals actually go:
The one document set every seller has. Three years of returns support a real multi-year analysis before you ever see their internal books.
The single best lie detector in small-business diligence: does the revenue on the return actually show up as deposits?
Who runs the business when the owner is away — and when did they last take two consecutive weeks off? "Never" is an answer too.
123 items across 14 categories, each with a one-line explanation of why it matters — so a missing or evasive answer tells you something.
A one-page checklist of the 20 documents to request first, each with why it matters. They surface the deal-killers that show up most often — before you spend real money on diligence.
Probity is a diligence workspace for people buying businesses under $5M — the same discipline as the request list, but tracking the documents, reading the financials, and keeping the record of the deal as you go.
“Every add-back without a document is purchase price you’re donating. Every unverified deposit is revenue you’re taking on faith. The list exists so you never have to wonder what you forgot to ask.”