LenderAnalyzer is the document analysis layer for business acquisition lending. Upload the seller's bank statements, tax returns and financial statements, and get revenue verified against actual deposits, seller's discretionary earnings rebuilt with the add-backs shown, and the cash flow you need to test debt service on the new acquisition debt. Self-serve from $99 a month.
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An acquisition loan is underwritten on a business the borrower does not own yet, using financial records the borrower did not prepare. That is what makes it different from ordinary commercial credit. The lender, and the buyer, have to answer one question first: are the seller's numbers real? The tax return says one thing, the seller's profit and loss statement says another, the broker's adjusted earnings figure says a third, and the only independent record of what the business actually collected is the bank statements. Underwriting the deal means reconciling those three sources, deciding which add-backs survive scrutiny, and testing whether the historical cash flow covers the new debt with room to pay the buyer a living wage. LenderAnalyzer automates the document work behind that. It reads the seller's bank statements and totals real deposits net of transfers, loans and one-time credits, so you can compare collected revenue against the revenue reported on the return and on the profit and loss. It reads the personal and business tax returns and rebuilds cash flow from net profit with depreciation, amortization, interest and owner compensation identified, which is the base for seller's discretionary earnings or adjusted EBITDA. It surfaces the existing debt payments and the recurring obligations sitting in the statements, including any the seller did not mention. Every figure links back to the line it came from, which is what a credit file, an SBA lender's reviewer and a buyer's diligence memo all need. To be clear about scope, LenderAnalyzer is not an SBA loan origination system and it does not issue an approval, produce SBA forms, or perform a formal quality of earnings engagement. It is the analysis that feeds those. It runs self-serve from $99 a month, which is why SBA lenders, search funds and business brokers use it on live deals without a platform contract.
Acquisition credit turns on three things: whether the seller's earnings are real, whether they survive the change of ownership, and whether they cover the new debt. Each one comes out of the documents.
The single most useful check in acquisition diligence is the cheapest one: total what the business actually collected in the bank account and compare it with the revenue on the tax return and on the seller's profit and loss. Deposits have to be netted first, because transfers between the seller's accounts, loan proceeds, owner contributions and refunds all look like revenue if you just sum the credits. When collected revenue and reported revenue diverge by more than a rounding difference, that gap is the deal. It is either unreported income the lender cannot count, an accounting timing difference you can explain, or a seller who is inflating the numbers. Automating the deposit analysis turns a week of spreadsheet work into a comparison you can run on day one.
Seller's discretionary earnings adds the owner's full compensation and personal perks back to profit, because a single owner-operator buyer is stepping into that seat. Adjusted EBITDA leaves a market-rate salary for a replacement manager in the expenses, because a buyer who will not run the business day to day still has to pay someone who will. Owner-operated small businesses are usually valued and financed on SDE; larger companies with real management are underwritten on EBITDA. A lender that underwrites an absentee buyer on an SDE figure has quietly financed a salary that will never be paid. Rebuilding both from the returns, with each add-back shown and sourced, is where the document work goes.
Add-backs are where an acquisition falls apart under review. Depreciation and amortization are non-cash and come back cleanly. Interest on debt being retired at closing comes back. One-time legal fees, a genuinely non-recurring lawsuit, an owner's personal vehicle or health insurance can come back if they are documented and truly discretionary. What does not survive is a recurring expense relabeled as one-time, a family member on payroll who does real work, or deferred maintenance dressed up as a one-off. A useful rule for a lender: if the expense will exist again next year under a new owner, it is not an add-back. Show each adjustment with the source line behind it so a credit reviewer can accept or strike it individually.
Historical earnings only matter to the extent they cover the loan the buyer is about to take. The debt service coverage test runs adjusted cash flow against the annual payments on the acquisition debt plus any existing debt that survives closing, and a buyer who needs to live on the business has to come out of that cash flow too. SBA 7(a) lending has published floors here: under SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, standard 7(a) loans above $350,000 are underwritten to a minimum 1.15 times debt service coverage, while 7(a) Small Loans at or under $350,000 carry a 1.10 times floor. Change-of-ownership deals also require at least a 10 percent equity injection, and a seller note only counts toward part of it, up to half, if it is on full standby for the life of the SBA loan. Those rules set the structure; the documents decide whether the cash flow clears the bar.
The four ways buyers and lenders test a seller's numbers, and what each one costs. Last updated July 2026; SBA figures reflect SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, and the 7(a) Small Loan coverage floor, so confirm current SBA policy before you rely on it.
| Approach | What it checks | Turnaround | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| LenderAnalyzer This page | Reconciles collected deposits against reported revenue, rebuilds cash flow from the returns with add-backs shown, surfaces existing debt, all traceable | Minutes per document set, self-serve | Transparent, $99 to $399/mo |
| Quality of earnings engagement | A full accounting firm review: revenue recognition, normalized EBITDA, working capital, customer concentration, opinion attached | Two to six weeks | Five figures and up, per deal |
| Broker or seller adjusted earnings sheet | The seller's own add-back schedule, prepared to support the asking price | Immediate, and it is the starting point, not the answer | Free, and it needs independent verification |
| Manual spreadsheet diligence | Whatever the analyst has time to check by hand from the PDFs | Days per deal, and it is inconsistent between analysts | Free, but slow and error-prone |
Comparison compiled by LenderAnalyzer from public vendor materials, June 2026. Competitor names are trademarks of their respective owners; figures may change, so verify current details with each vendor.
Computed deterministically from every extracted transaction, every figure traceable to its source line.
Computed across the full statement period, carried forward day by day.
Deposits vs withdrawals and net flow, broken down month by month.
Every insufficient-funds and overdraft incident counted, with fees totaled.
Recurring deposits grouped into income streams with estimated monthly amounts.
Debits to other lenders and funders detected and totaled per month.
Days below zero across the period, a direct stress signal.
The biggest credits with dates and sources, concentration flagged.
Automatic red and yellow flags your analysts can review in seconds.
Drop in PDFs, scans or photos, one statement or a multi-month package, from any bank.
Every transaction is extracted, then cash flow, balances, income streams, NSF activity and debt payments are computed.
Read the underwriting snapshot, download the Excel report, or pull structured JSON into your LOS via API.
28 lending document types extracted out of the box, build the complete picture of an applicant's financial situation.
Common questions from lending and credit teams.
They underwrite the business being bought, not the buyer's history with it. The lender verifies the seller's revenue against the bank statements, rebuilds cash flow from the tax returns with defensible add-backs, and tests whether that cash flow covers the new acquisition debt plus a living wage for the buyer. Collateral and the buyer's management experience matter, but the deal turns on whether the historical earnings are real and repeatable.
Under SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, a standard 7(a) loan above $350,000 is underwritten to a minimum debt service coverage ratio of 1.15 times, and 7(a) Small Loans at or under $350,000 carry a 1.10 times floor. Lenders commonly apply their own tighter credit policy on top. Coverage is computed on adjusted historical cash flow against the pro forma debt service, so the add-backs you allow directly move the ratio.
Seller's discretionary earnings, or SDE, is the total financial benefit a single owner-operator gets from a business. It starts from net profit and adds back the owner's salary and benefits, interest, depreciation and amortization, taxes, and genuinely discretionary or one-time expenses. It is the standard earnings metric for owner-operated small businesses. Adjusted EBITDA differs in one important way: it leaves a market-rate salary for a replacement manager in the expenses.
It depends on who is buying and who will run the business. If the buyer will operate the business themselves, as in most SBA 7(a) acquisitions and search fund deals under a few million dollars, SDE reflects the cash they will actually receive. If the buyer will install or retain professional management, EBITDA is the right base because that manager's salary is a real, ongoing expense. Financing an absentee buyer on an SDE figure overstates the cash available to service debt.
Compare what the business collected with what it reported. Total the deposits in the business bank statements, then strip out internal transfers, loan proceeds, owner contributions and refunds, because all of those inflate raw deposit totals. Set that collected figure next to the revenue on the tax returns and on the seller's profit and loss. A material gap is either unreported income, a timing difference you can explain, or a number the seller is inflating. LenderAnalyzer computes the netted deposit figure and keeps it traceable to the transactions.
The defensible ones. Depreciation and amortization are non-cash and always come back. Interest on debt being retired at closing comes back. The owner's above-market compensation, personal vehicle, personal travel and a genuinely one-time expense such as a lawsuit can come back when they are documented. What gets struck is a recurring cost dressed up as one-time, a working family member on payroll, and deferred maintenance. The practical test is simple: if the expense will recur next year under a new owner, it is not an add-back.
SBA requires at least a 10 percent equity injection on a complete change of ownership. A seller note can count toward part of that injection, up to half of it, but only when the note is on full standby, with no principal or interest payments, for the life of the SBA loan and documented on the SBA standby creditor agreement. These rules come from SOP 50 10 8, effective June 1, 2025, and SBA policy changes, so confirm the current SOP before you structure a deal on it.
No. A quality of earnings engagement is a full accounting firm review with an opinion attached, and on a larger deal it is worth the five-figure fee and the several weeks it takes. LenderAnalyzer does the document analysis underneath: it verifies collected revenue against the statements, rebuilds cash flow from the returns with add-backs shown, and surfaces existing debt. On smaller acquisitions where a formal engagement is not economic, that analysis is often what the lender and the buyer actually rely on.
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