Earnings & Margins
Mapped historical financials, growth, gross margins, operating expenses, and the drivers of changes. Revenue segments are analyzed when the supporting detail is available.
FirmLedge Full Spread · For Business Owners
Your financials,
organized, analyzed,
and explained.
Understand what drives your earnings and cash flow, what a buyer would question, and where you can improve.
Get a usable Excel workbook and a clear report about your business, with analysis informed by experience buying and selling companies. Useful whether a sale is years away or isn’t on your mind.
Prepared by FirmLedge and reviewed personally by Andrew Gallagher, a former private equity Senior Associate and investment banking analyst.
Questions Worth Understanding
Revenue is growing.
Why isn’t cash?
Margins have changed.
What’s driving it?
A buyer sees these books.
What would they ask?
What Full Spread Covers
The numbers.
The reasons behind them.
The analysis follows the records you provide and the scope we agree. Missing information stays visible, so the report is clear about what the data can and cannot tell us.
Cash & Working Capital
Balance-sheet trends, cash conversion, and the money tied up in receivables, inventory, and payables. A view of why accounting profit and cash can move differently.
Supported Adjustments
A bridge from reported earnings to the adjusted view, with proposed adjustments labeled accepted, partially accepted, or rejected for this analysis, and the supporting rationale.
Questions & Improvements
The questions a buyer could raise and prioritized opportunities to investigate or improve. Future initiatives stay separate from adjustments to historical results.
An included adjustment is an analytical judgment based on the records supplied; it does not guarantee a future buyer’s acceptance. Full Spread is not an audit, formal quality-of-earnings report, or business appraisal.
See the Work
A business.
A financial story.
Bluestem Industrial Supply Co. is a fictional example: a $12.8m distributor, spread from 73 QuickBooks accounts into a buyer's view. It shows how the workbook, findings, and questions fit together. It is not a client result or a promise of findings in your business.
Illustrative Sample
Bluestem Industrial Supply Co.
Last twelve months ended June 30, 2026
- Revenue
- $12.8m
- EBITDA per the books
- $846k
- Adjusted EBITDA
- $1.17m 9.2% margin
- Cash absorbed by working capital
- −$605k
Customer A: 20% of sales at a 23% margin · Line of credit: $350k to $920k
The Owner’s Read
Growth came from one customer.
Margin and cash went with it.
Revenue is up a third since 2023, but one account won at a thin price is most of the growth, gross margin fell 3.5 points, and receivables and stock absorbed the cash the line of credit is now funding.
The report separates the $846k in the books from the $1.17m adjusted view under the sample assumptions, sets out eight questions a buyer could ask, and models potential improvements of about $266k in annual EBITDA before overlap and $410k in one-time cash. The amounts and timing are scenarios, not assured outcomes.
Read the excerpt without an email gate. The complete sample report and workbook are available on request.
How It Works
A clear scope.
A useful conversation.
No software to learn. Start with a short note about your business and the records you already have.
- Confirm the FitShare non-confidential context and answer ten short questions, one sentence each. Andrew confirms the scope, required inputs, timing, and fee before you commit.
- Share the Agreed RecordsWe agree on confidentiality, permitted tools, and a file-sharing route before financial records are transferred.
- Receive & DiscussReceive your workbook and owner report, then discuss the findings in a 30-minute walkthrough with Andrew.
Timing: 5-7 business days after the complete agreed inputs are received and the scope is confirmed. Data gaps or changes to the scope may require a revised timeline, agreed with you.
Founding Offer · First 10 Paid Engagements
Your Full Spread
$499 USD
A financial workbook, an owner report, and a personal walkthrough.
Request Your Full SpreadFit and scope are confirmed before payment. There is no charge for the initial inquiry. After the first ten engagements, pricing is reviewed; terms agreed for your engagement do not change.
A Defined Starting Point
- Business
- One company. Multi-entity consolidation or extensive cleanup requires a separate scope.
- Periods
- Up to three completed financial years plus the current year to date.
- Inputs
- Usable P&L, balance-sheet, and general-ledger exports for the agreed periods. Monthly and segment detail where available and relevant.
- Review & Handoff
- One clarification round and a 30-minute walkthrough. The scope identifies the analyses the supplied records can support.
We start with existing records. Bookkeeping reconstruction, tax work, an audit, formal QoE, valuation opinions, and ongoing reporting are outside this offer.
The Person Behind the Analysis
Experience on both sides
of a transaction.
Before FirmLedge, I worked in lower-middle-market private equity, industrials investment banking, and sell-side M&A. My prior roles included three buy-side PE acquisitions and four sell-side transactions.
Full Spread brings that perspective to owners who want to understand their business more clearly. AI assists with preparation; I review the material conclusions and explain the findings with you.
I also created UpLevered, a practitioner resource for middle-market private equity. FirmLedge is my client-services practice.
More About AndrewBefore You Begin
A few useful answers.
Which businesses is Full Spread for?
Established companies with a few years of financial records, most often in distribution, industrial, field, or business services with roughly $3 to $30 million in revenue. That range is a guide, not a rule. Usable records, the complexity of the business, and whether the analysis would be useful decide fit, which we confirm before any commitment.
Do I need to be planning a sale?
No. Full Spread is for owners who want to understand earnings, margins, cash flow, and opportunities to improve. A buyer’s perspective can be useful even when selling is not part of your plan.
How is this different from my accountant’s work?
Full Spread organizes and interprets the financial records your business already keeps. It does not replace bookkeeping, tax advice, financial-statement assurance, or your accountant’s judgment. It helps connect the records to business questions and priorities.
What if my books are incomplete or inconsistent?
We discuss that before starting. Records need to be usable enough to support the agreed analysis. Material gaps are identified and may need to be resolved by your bookkeeper or accountant first. Extensive accounting cleanup is not included in the $499 offer.
What records do you need?
Annual and, where available, monthly P&Ls for up to three completed fiscal years and the current year to date, balance sheets at the matching dates, and general-ledger or account-detail exports for those periods. Excel or CSV exports are preferred. Customer, product, aging, and debt detail deepen the analysis when available, but are not required to begin.
Do I need to connect QuickBooks or install anything?
No. Existing exports are enough to begin the fit discussion. We agree on the required periods, files, and format before you share records. An accounting-software connection is not required.
How are confidentiality and AI handled?
Keep the first email non-confidential. Before records are shared, we agree on confidentiality requirements, permitted access, and the tools to be used. Preparation may use AI assistance; Andrew personally reviews material conclusions. Do not send credentials, account access, or sensitive records in the first message. See the Privacy Policy and service terms.
Will this tell me what my business is worth?
Full Spread helps explain the financials, supported earnings adjustments, potential buyer questions, and improvement opportunities. It does not establish a sale price, guarantee a buyer’s treatment of adjustments, or provide a valuation opinion or appraisal.
Can I use the files after the walkthrough?
Yes. You receive a usable Excel workbook and owner report for your own analysis and discussions. Any external sharing or reliance should be agreed in the engagement scope. An optional future refresh can be discussed separately; there is no subscription included or required.
Start With Your Business
Make the numbers
more useful.
Email Andrew with your business type, approximate size, what you want to understand, and which financial records are available. A short, non-confidential note is enough.
Please do not attach sensitive financials. We confirm fit and arrange the next step first.
Email Andrew About Full Spread [email protected]
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