Help finding financial statements for selling my LLC s-corp - broker demands valuation docs

You don't need to download any special forms - financial statements aren't government forms like tax returns. They're just standardized ways of presenting your business financial information. For selling a business, you'll typically need three main financial statements: 1) Income Statement (or Profit & Loss Statement) - shows your revenue, expenses, and profit over specific time periods. Potential buyers usually want to see 3-5 years of these. 2) Balance Sheet - provides a snapshot of what your business owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities), and the owner's equity at a specific point in time. 3) Cash Flow Statement - shows how money moved in and out of your business during a specific period. Since you mentioned having QuickBooks, you can generate these reports directly from there! Go to the Reports section, and you'll find templates for all three. Buyers typically want to see these statements for the last few years to identify trends.

When I was preparing to sell my construction business last year, I struggled with this exact issue! I tried cobbling together my own statements but potential buyers kept asking questions I couldn't answer. I found this amazing tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) that really saved me during the process. It analyzed all my QuickBooks data and tax returns, then generated professional-looking financial statements specifically formatted for business valuation. It even highlighted key metrics buyers look for like adjusted EBITDA and owner benefits. I'm not very financially savvy, but the tool made my financials look super professional and helped me understand what numbers were important to emphasize. The brokers were actually impressed with how organized my materials were and it definitely helped attract serious buyers!

Just wanted to update that I tried taxr.ai after seeing it mentioned here, and wow - it was exactly what I needed! I uploaded my last 3 years of QuickBooks data and it generated a complete valuation package. It even created a "normalized earnings" statement that showed the business's true earning potential by adding back my excessive salary and some one-time expenses. The best part was how it formatted everything specifically for business sale purposes with explanations that helped me understand my own business financials better. When my broker saw the package, he was impressed and said it would definitely help attract better offers. It identified several add-backs I wouldn't have thought of that increased my valuation by about $85,000!

If you're struggling to get responses from buyers because of incomplete financials, another issue you might face is getting stuck on hold with the IRS if you need any tax transcripts or verification. I had this problem when selling my retail shop - needed to verify some tax info but couldn't get through to the IRS for weeks. I ended up using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) which got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes instead of waiting on hold for hours. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c It was super helpful when a potential buyer questioned something on my tax return and I needed official clarification quickly. Without that, I might have lost that buyer due to the delay.

I was totally wrong about Claimyr and need to post a correction. After my skeptical comment, I actually tried it when I needed to resolve an issue with missing K-1 forms that was holding up my business sale. I had been trying to reach the IRS for days with no luck. Used their service and got connected to an IRS agent in about 15 minutes. Turns out there was an error in how my S-corp distributions were reported that could have caused major problems with my sale. The IRS agent helped me understand exactly what needed to be corrected, which helped me avoid potential legal issues down the road with the new buyer. Sorry for doubting - sometimes things that sound too good to be true actually do work!

One thing nobody's mentioned yet - make sure you also prepare a list of all business assets with approximate values (equipment, inventory, vehicles, intellectual property, etc). When I sold my wholesale business, buyers wanted this separate from the main financial statements. Also, prepare a customer concentration report showing what percentage of revenue comes from your top clients. Buyers get nervous if too much revenue depends on just a few customers.

Don't forget about getting your tax basis in the S-corp right! This is super important and often overlooked. Your tax basis determines how much tax you'll pay when you sell. For S-corps, your basis increases with capital contributions and income, and decreases with distributions and losses. Many business owners don't track this carefully and end up with nasty tax surprises.