Can this business pay you and the bank?
Enter the numbers from any business-for-sale listing. In thirty seconds you'll see the real multiple, the SBA payment, and whether the deal covers your salary with room to spare.
That's the screen. The full analyzer does the part that decides whether you actually close: normalizing the seller's add-backs, sizing working capital and closing costs into your real cash-to-close, testing three seller-note structures, and a sensitivity grid that shows how far price or earnings can slip before the loan breaks.
Get the full Deal Analyzer, $79What's in the workbook
A one-screen dashboard
The verdict, coverage, cash to close, cash left, and your walk-away price — five numbers, colour-coded, before you read anything else. Every one traces back to the inputs.
Earnings normalization
Owner comp, perks, family payroll, one-time items and rent adjustments, producing SDE and Adjusted EBITDA the way a lender's underwriter and a buyer's QofE will compute them.
Sources and uses
Equity, SBA 7(a) loan with the guarantee fee financed, seller note, working capital, capex and closing costs. Your total cash to close, which is never the down payment.
Coverage and returns
DSCR, cash-on-cash, payback, break-even SDE, and the maximum price that still hits your minimum coverage. That last number is your walk-away price in a negotiation.
Sensitivity grid
DSCR across nine price points and seven earnings outcomes, colored so you can see the edge of the deal at a glance.
Seller note scenarios
No note, moderate note, heavy note. Side by side: cash down, debt service, coverage and return, so you know what to ask the seller for.
E-2 visa screen
For treaty-country buyers: proportionality, funds at risk, source of funds and the marginality test, with a read you can bring to immigration counsel before you spend on a business plan.
Industry multiples
Directional SDE and EBITDA ranges for twenty common small-business categories, so you know when an asking price is outside the market. For a read on actual comparable transactions in your target's industry, XP runs a deal-specific analysis.
Works in Excel and Google Sheets
No macros, no add-ins. Blue cells are yours to change; everything else is a live formula you can trace. Finance-standard colour convention, print-ready. Instant download after checkout.
Price
- SMB Deal Analyzer workbook (.xlsx), Google Sheets compatible
- Example deal pre-loaded so you can see the expected inputs
- Free updates when SBA fee tiers or rate assumptions change
- Use on unlimited deals. Single-buyer license.
Digital product, delivered instantly. All sales are final.
Not ready to buy? Take the checklist.
Our one-page due-diligence checklist for buying a business under $5M: the 38 documents to request and the six add-backs sellers most often overstate.
Questions buyers ask
New to acquisition financing? Start with how to finance buying a business — the three sources of money, and the one number every lender checks first.
What is SDE and why not just use net income?
Seller's discretionary earnings is net income with interest, taxes, depreciation, the owner's full compensation and personal expenses added back. It is what one owner-operator can take out of the business. Listings quote it because it is the largest defensible number; the analyzer recomputes it so you can see which add-backs are real.
What DSCR do SBA lenders want?
Most look for 1.25x or better on historical cash flow after a reasonable salary for you. The calculator above uses 1.25x to solve for your maximum price.
Does a seller note count as my equity injection?
Only if it is on full standby for the term of the SBA loan, and only up to half of the required injection under current rules. Confirm structure with your lender before you sign a letter of intent.
Is the E-2 screen legal advice?
No. It checks whether the numbers fall in a credible range for the substantial, at-risk and non-marginal tests. A licensed immigration attorney makes the call.
Who built this?
XP M&A Advisory. We work with acquirers on the buy side, and this is the model we run on every deal before a client makes an offer. The free calculator above is the first screen; the workbook is the rest of it.