Sell your small business and actually get paid

  1. Pull three years of tax returns and financial statements
    2 hours

    This step produces the one folder that holds everything a buyer will ask to see first: the last three filed tax returns and the monthly financials for the same period. The trap is that most owners have never gathered all of it in one place — and a missing year does not disappear, it becomes a question the buyer will ask.

    • Create a folder named CompanyName — Sale Prep — Financials with three subfolders: Tax Returns, Monthly P&L, and Balance Sheets.
    • Identify your entity type so you pull the right form: C corporations file Form 1120, S corporations file 1120-S, partnerships file 1065, sole proprietors report on Schedule C. Collect the matching federal return for each of the last three filed years, plus your state return.
    • Export the monthly Profit & Loss and the monthly Balance Sheet for each of the last three fiscal years and the current year to date. In QuickBooks Online: Reports → Profit and Loss, then Balance Sheet; set the period to each full year.
    • For any year you cannot find, order it the same day: free transcripts online at IRS.gov → Get Transcript, or Form 4506-T by mail; state returns come from your state revenue department.
    • Export year-end bank statements for the same three years — you will need them the moment you start the recast.